Mamelodi Sundowns Sporting Director Flemming Berg has explained the club’s changes around the technical team after their 5-0 thumping of Maritzburg United.
Masandawana beat Maritzburg 5-0 at Harry Gwala Stadium last night, following braces from Cassius Mailula, Haashim Domingo and and a solitary goal by Man of the Match Thapelo Morena.
It was the first game after Downs announced the changes to their technical team, with Rulani Mokwena now the sole Head Coach, while Manqoba Mngqithi was demoted to Senior Coach, the role previously held by Steve Komphela, who in return was named First Team Coach.
After the match, Berg met representatives of the media to explain the changes on the sidelines, insisting the level of performances was behind the decision.
“The reason behind this, as it also says in the press release, because we’ve had a longer period of time where we’ve not been happy with our performances and probably more important the development in our performances,” he said.
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“We’ve gotten to a certain extent the results we wanted, especially in the league, now was the fifth win in a row but the performances have not been as expected and as we’ve hoped, and because of that we’ve decided to do the changes as we’ve done.”
When asked to define what the actual roles of Head Coach, First Team Coach and Senior Coach mean, Berg it’s the same coaches in charge.
“We have the same persons in our coaching team and it’s our coaching team who have been behind everything that has gone so far. It’s team work, not only the coaches and the players, it’s everyone behind,” he added.
“We felt we needed to do these changes to add some clarity to our squad, to our team, our staff in general.
“The roles in general are as we’ve described it – we have a Head Coach in coach Rulani, we have a First Team Coach in coach Steve and we have a Senior Coach in coach Manqoba.
“It’s three highly qualified coaches and we’re very happy with the way they’ve taken the changes and how they’ve acted very, very professional with a lot of integrity but we have also expected it because it’s three highly qualified coaches.
“We’re very lucky at Mamelodi Sundowns to have that.”
Finally, Berg also insisted the club’s leadership felt it was the right time to make this brave decision for the better of the club overall.
“We felt the time was now and we’ve done the changes because we think it will bring the team forward and it will bring us the results, but also the way we want to play football,” he continued.
“To bring us to become one of the best clubs in Africa and be a contender in all tournaments that we participate in.
“So yes, we believe that these changes are the right ones for our club and that is our job as leaders in Mamelodi Sundowns. It’s nothing about persons or whatever, it’s about what can we do for the club.
“The win today is not a win for coach Rulani, it’s a win for the coaching team, for the club in general, for our fans.
“And that is what our job is and what we try to do every day when we go to work, it’s to make sure that our club goes in the direction that we want, our fans want, the board wants and that’s why we’ve taken the decision we have taken.”
