Former Bucs Wizard Mayambela Completes UEFA B License 

Former Orlando Pirates dribbling wizard, Mark Mayambela has completed his UEFA B license and revealed which former PSL coach inspired him to become a coach himself. 

Mayambela, 35, has switched the pitch for the sidelines and has been growing in his coaching role at Cape Town City, with his first trophy being the Engen Knockout Challenge in 2022 as assistant coach. 

‘Professor’, has recently been named DDC head coach with Byron Cotte after Ian Taylor’s departure, has continued to empower himself and completed his UEFA B license recently. 

“I did it via Irish FA in Northern Ireland, Belfast,” Mayambela told iDiski Times.

“There were not really challenges but it was an adventurous journey, also meeting people from different parts of the world, spending 10 days in Ireland and learning how they do things that side it was interesting.

“It was an important decision that I had to make because in my mind when I took on the journey of coaching it was always player-centred, meaning that I want to be a coach that brings change, also a coach that will help players develop better and become better players, better human beings. So that the standard hopefully of football in South Africa will change and become better.

“I am one of those people that advocates for that hence I took part of this journey of empowering myself as a coach and as a human being with these coaching licenses and other supplementary courses that I can do to better myself as a coach.”

The 36-year-old played under a lot of coaches in South Africa and abroad, and revealed that it were former Ajax Cape Town coach Stanley Menzo as well as his older brother, who inspired him. 

“My older brother was a coach before he passed on, when I was still young, like 12 or 13 years old and he is also someone that I looked up to growing up,” he explains.

“Also, of course, when I started playing the coaches that played a role also, especially the European-based coaches like Ruud Krol and Stanley Menzo at Ajax Cape Town.

“I think he is the one that ignited that passion of coaching and, of course, there are other coaches that I’ve met along the way but I really think the one that really ignited it was Stanley Menzo.”

Story by Sinethemba Makonco (@Makonco_M).