‘Being like Komphela will be setting myself up for failure’: Ncikazi

03 July 2015 - 02:18 By Khanyiso Tshwaku

Maritzburg United's new coach, Mandla Ncikazi, has been instructed to lift the team even higher than last season's eighth-place finish. The former assistant coach said he believed he was up for the challenge. His appointment means all the Premier Soccer League's top eight sides are coached by South Africans.Stuart Baxter was the only foreign coach in this bracket before his departure from league champions Kaizer Chiefs."With the PSL having so many local coaches, maybe it was about time for me to get an opportunity and test my abilities," said Ncikazi."Football is about pressure and I have faced the pressure as an assistant with Maritzburg United," he said.He was competing for the post with the likes of former New Zealand national team coach Ricki Herbert and former Moroka Swallows and Orlando Pirates coach Julio Cesar Leal. He has been given a two-year deal and will be assisted by Fadlu Davids."I'm not going to try to be like [former head coach] Steve Komphela. If I do so, I will be setting myself up for failure."United finished in the top eight for the first time and, even though Komphela was the face of that success, Ncikazi quietly went about his job as assistant coach."If the structure of the club did not change, the methodology does not change and we keep most of the personnel that took us to number eight last season, so we should be good to go."When we share the same vision and philosophy, not much is going to change," Ncikazi said...

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