Under-fire Kaizer Chiefs coach Molefi Ntseki has compared his situation at Amakhosi to the early struggles of Pep Guardiola at Manchester City and Pitso Mosimane at Mamelodi Sundowns.
Molefi has received some backlash from fans after collecting just one point in his first three DStv Premiership games this season, leading to angry supporters throwing objects at him at Mbombela Stadium last weekend.
However, the club has confirmed he still has the full backing and Molefi himself has now drawn comparisons to the likes of Sir Alex Ferguson, who needed three years to win his first trophy at Old Trafford, Guardiola and Mosimane.
“I always look back at the people who came before me,” he told local journalists.
“I always look at some of the top coaches in the world, Sir Alex Ferguson when he first joined Man United they were not happy with him in the first season, but he ended up becoming the most successful coach at Man United.
“You also look at Pep Guardiola when he joined Man City, the first year was not a very good year but he became the best coach in the world and Man City currently is the best team in the world.
“You look at what happened to our own coach Pitso Mosimane when he was at Sundowns, it shows that at times when we are not patient with ourselves and we end up maybe becoming too hard ourselves, because things are not going according to plan.
“I think the mental space that you are talking about, in my career it’s not for the first time [that I’m being criticised]. In football these things do happen – whether it’s a big team, whether it’s a small team, if the supporters are not happy we should have a way of addressing and psyching ourselves in terms of you giving a brave face to the players yourself to say ‘it is just a setback, if I can overcome the setback it will be for the best of the team’.
“At the same time, if you have to think of quitting you are not in the right space, because coming in at Kaizer Chiefs comes with a lot of pressure, a lot of expectation – people are demanding the team to win, people are very impatient of what have been happening in the past years.
“Yes, we might be getting all that is happening today, it is not necessarily our own doing but about what has been happening in the past.
“But you cannot run away and say ‘why are you doing this to me?’ It’s football, it’s life, one has to be strong and be brave in terms of what needs to happen and change things around, and we’ll win in the end.”
Ntseki and Chiefs have a chance to win their first game of the season when they host AmaZulu at FNB Stadium at 17:30 on Saturday.
