AmaZulu boss Sandile Zungu reveals what he expects from his new coach

Competing for trophies and taking the team back to Caf club competitions are among the targets AmaZulu president Sandile Zungu will set for the team’s new coach.

Usuthu are searching for a new coach to take the team forward after opting against giving the job to interim boss Ayanda Dlamini.

After replacing Romain Folz in April, Dlamini took charge of six DStv Premiership games and managed only six points, which was not good enough to convince Zungu to give him the job full time.

Zungu told TimesLIVE the club will appoint a new coach soon as they want to go into preseason with him in charge.

The president said the next person will be someone who wants to achieve big things that are aligned with the team and not just be there for the pay cheque.   

“As a big brand, AmaZulu cannot be satisfied with just being  in the Premier Soccer League,” Zungu said.

“We have to be satisfied once we start being counted among the clubs that have lifted a cup. There are teams that are just there that will never win anything, whose owners are content with winning nothing and just being there.

“AmaZulu wants to win cups and we will believe we are right to have that ambition.   

“So, whoever comes into the team — administratively, technically and even as a player — must adopt that mentality. That's one area I'm not going to compromise on and if you can’t fit into that, you don’t belong in AmaZulu.   

“Don’t tell me you don’t want to win anything, then you don’t belong in AmaZulu. We have to compete in everything, and I want that kind of mentality to be ingrained in AmaZulu.

“There’s a whole lot of things that need to be discussed with the new coach in terms of what he wants to commit himself to.

“Yes, we are open to discussion of the 'how' part and the 'when' part. [It will be acceptable] if he says in the first season, ‘I want to cement our position in the top four, we may not win much but we will be playing the football we will be proud of; and in the second season I want to compete for a top two/three finish and play on the continent and win one of the competitions within three seasons'.”   

Zungu is scheduled to hold a press conference on Monday to announce big changes. Some reports have claimed these will include Dlamini, general manager Tshepiso Mofokeng, long-serving team manager Qedusizi Dlamini and chief scout Ayanda Mkhize being shown the door.

Since he bought the club from Patrick Sokhela in October 2020, Zungu has made four coaching changes.

He found Dlamini at the steering wheel and replaced him with Benni McCarthy in December that year.   

McCarthy helped the club to a second place finish in the league and led the team to the Caf Champions League group stages in their first outing in Africa in the 2021-22 season. The next campaign was more of a struggle and the club ended their relationship with Bafana Bafana's all-time top scorer in March 2022. 

He was replaced by Brandon Truter who got the boot in October last year, making way for Folz. 

So far it has only been McCarthy, now the forwards coach at Manchester United, who came close to the success standards Zungu desires. 

While Folz coached the team in the MTN8 final defeat to Orlando Pirates, he got there after most of the job in the early stages of the competition was done by Truter. 

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