MIHLALI BALEKA
MUSA Nyatama and Vusumuzi Vilakazi are on course to be unlikely heroes for Moroka Swallows and Richards Bay respectively after dragging their troubled teams closer to safety.
Swallows and the Natal Rich Boyz were the big winners on Saturday as they added twists and turns to the battle for the second-place finish, beating challengers Stellenbosch 2-0 and Orlando Pirates 1-0, respectively.
Those wins ensured that they helped their cause to remain afloat as well, with Swallows remaining 13th on the log with 32 points, five ahead of the 15th-placed Richards Bay.
In the bigger scheme of things, both teams ensured that they will avoid automatic relegation, which has since fallen on Cape Town Spurs.
Swallows are two points away from ensuring that they won’t even play in the promotion/relegation play-offs – something that should be attainable in the last two games. The Birds’ ability to soar close to steady waters has been steered by the guidance of Nyatama, who was a quick fix after the team’s financial crisis early in the year.
Nyatama relinquished his assistant role after head coach Steve Komphela didn’t return to the post alongside the players, who were sacked after protesting for unpaid salaries.
Since then, Nyatama has ensured that the team – with the blend of some of the remaining players and new personnel – kept their heads above water and pulled closer to safety. But the former Bloemfontein Celtic, Orlando Pirates and Mamelodi Sundowns’ midfielder argues that he hasn’t been doing it all on his own.
“I am not alone,” Nyatama explained. “The technical team, assistant coach (Ditheko Mototo) and goalkeeper coach (Thela Thela) have been helpful.
“We’ve got a strong and young technical team in which I count them to say we are in this together. We are happy. This is also profiling us to say we are saving the team for the second time in a row.”
Last season, Nyatama didn’t only save the team’s status but he incredibly steered it to a top-eight finish – having then been another quick fix after Ernst Middendorp’s resignation. And while the prospect of repeating that feat looks unlikely this season, Nyatama has asked for consistency from his team as they try to save their status.
“We’ve done well against the so-called big teams, and that’s a motivation on its own for these players to play against big teams,” Nyatama said.
“I wish we can take the effort into the games against the so-called small teams we are fighting with down there. We must change our mentality.
“We can’t put this effort against Stellies and come next week against SuperSport we don’t come to the party. We need to.”
Vilakazi, just like Nyatama, was also a quick fix during a troubled time, with the team facing relegation and still engulfed by the passing of defender Siphamandla Mtolo, who collapsed during training.
Vilakazi hasn’t yet delivered the team to the promised land – full safety – as they are still stuck in the promotion/relegation play-offs spot, but he’s happy with their strides so far.
“I wouldn’t know what happened last season because I was not there,” Vilakazi explained. “Even this season, I was only in charge for the last 14 games.
“What I noticed when I arrived in the team, though, is that the problem was psychological. There are too many things that happened in this team which we are not noticing.
“For the fact that they lost a teammate on the field (at training), that affected them so much. So that’s why they were struggling for too long – the problem was psychological.”
With Bay two points adrift of the 14th-placed Royal AM, who have a game in hand, Vilakazi is not ruling out the possibility of leapfrogging the latter.
“If we win here, we had (a chance) to chase someone and we still have a chance because we're chasing Royal AM now since Swallows won,” Vilakazi said, after the Pirates game.