A week after Ronny van Geneudgen (RVG) was hired as Malawi National Football Team Coach, very few, if any, can pretend to know the actual pronunciation of the Belgian\u2019s name.<\/p>\n
And the domestic football fraternity is not only struggling to pronounce the coach\u2019s name, but also his actual terms of reference.<\/p>\n
Doubts over his inexperience and the manner in which he was hired have not helped matters either.<\/p>\n
All this has happened in April and this is no Fools\u2019 Day matter, but a serious issue about the Flames and the direction which Football Association of Malawi (Fam) wants the Belgian to take the team.<\/p>\n
Is the man who is working for the first time in Africa, let alone as a national football team coach capable of turning things around for the perennial underachiever, the Flames?<\/p>\n
Apart from Ted Powel (English), Wonder Morreira (Brazilian) and Manfred Hoener (German), the rest of expatriates such as Danny MacLenan, Steve McRay, Michael Hennigan, Alan Gillet, Stephen Constantine (English) Kim Splidsboel (Danish), the late Burkhard Ziese (German) and Tom Saintfiet (Belgian), either failed or were failed by the harsh football environment.<\/p>\n
Fam President, Walter Nyamilandu, who when unveiling van Geneugden on Saturday hailed him as highly qualified with a Uefa Professional Licence and as being tactically savvy, also sang similar praises upon hiring Constantine in 2006.<\/p>\n
But by the time Constantine quit the job in 2008, the Flames had lost seven games (including six consecutively) and registered two wins and plunged to position 138, the team\u2019s all-time low on the Fifa\/ Coca-Cola World Ranking.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat also impressed us was his willingness to work with meagre resources. Not every coach, who applied, was willing to accept such a range of salary. He was the right kind of person who was willing to come and adapt. To get Ronny below a market-related salary was a bargain. His salary remains confidential but it is in our records and will be audited,\u201d Nyamilandu told the media at Mpira Village on Saturday.<\/p>\n
How do expatriates compare to locals who have been in charge of the Flames?<\/p>\n
In 2008, Kinnah Phiri succeeded Constantine. The Malawi football legend posted 19 wins, 21 losses and 18 defeats.<\/p>\n
Randomly, another expatriate, Saintfiet, registered three defeats, one win and a draw whereas local Ernest Mtawali\u2019s record was five wins, six defeats and four draws.<\/p>\n
Across the borders, most African teams have registered more success with local coaches than foreigners.<\/p>\n
In Zimbabwe, locals Calisto Pasuwa, Charles Mhlauri and Sunday Marimo earned the Warriors Africa Cup of Nations (Afcon) qualification. Clive Barker is the only one to earn South Africa the Afcon title. Perhaps the most successful is Hassan Shehata, who claimed three Afcon titles with Egypt.<\/p>\n
Of course, expatriates such as Herve Renard (Zambia and Ivory Coast) and Hugo Broos (Cameroon) have proved that not all foreigners flop.<\/p>\n
Coming back home, if you are among those treating the hiring of RVG with contempt, then there is no need to stress or curse anybody.<\/p>\n
The Doubting Thomasses will either be vindicated or be shamed this month.<\/p>\n
The nation will get to find out if RVG is the right man when the Flames embark on very demanding assignments, starting with the African Nations Championship (Chan), Afcon and Cosafa Cup assignments.<\/p>\n
Fam wants RVG to, in the short term, lead the Flames to glory in Chan, Afcon qualifiers and Cosafa Cup, while in the long run, overhauling the football production chain by introducing a distinct football philosophy.<\/p>\n
In Nyamilandu\u2019s words, RVG will, when on the Flames\u2019 break, not be idle but oversee the happenings in the under-17 and Under-20 national teams. The assumption is that the junior teams will be active. Experience proves otherwise.<\/p>\n
The coach\u2019s terms of reference are confusing. It is unclear as to whether Fam will judge him on both the playing philosophy and results.<\/p>\n
Some feel that the coach\u2019s plate is too full.<\/p>\n
It is easy to predict what would happen in the event that Flames misfire in the three games they will play this month, including the April 18 friendly in Kenya.<\/p>\n
Nonetheless, the former Genk coach said he was determined to leave a stamp on the psyche of Malawi football by looking at results and developing youth football.<\/p>\n
\u201cI want to create a style of football, not only for the first team but also for youth teams. When results are not positive, at least, you should be able to see that \u2018aah that is the style of play for Malawi,\u2019\u201d RVG said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI cannot do this alone, but together we need to create chemistry between the players on the pitch and the fans watching. From now, it is not about \u2018I will do this, but we will do this\u2019. I always say that \u2018try to shoot to the moon even when you miss the moon, you will still land on the stars\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n
Surely, the ball is in RVG’s court.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A week after Ronny van Geneudgen (RVG) was hired as Malawi National Football Team Coach, very few, if any, can pretend to know the actual pronunciation of the Belgian\u2019s name. And the domestic football fraternity is not only struggling to pronounce the coach\u2019s name, but also his actual terms of reference. Doubts over his inexperience […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":44458,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-44456","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44456","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44456"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44456\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":44459,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44456\/revisions\/44459"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/44458"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44456"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44456"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44456"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}