Friday, October 1, 2010

Dumb, Dismal and Dull Decisions.


Soccer players sometimes seem to loose the plot. I mean the choices they make are often decisions that you can see they have not really put much thought into. You should realize that I am talking from an off the pitch perspective, because if we talk about the decisions they make on the field, that’s a whole new article by itself.

Maybe you haven’t got to understand what I am talking about, so let’s get into it. Daine Klate, an accurate, basic and effective product from the Super Sport United, decided to drop a league title winning team, who is in the CAF Champions league, a club that has less stars but the best team build up, a team that is coached by the one of the best coaches South Africa has. He left a team that fills up his soccer resume and went for a team that hasn’t opened the club cabinet for the past couple of years. How does a player do that? I mean don’t you want to increase your honors.

At Orlando Pirates there is unnecessary pressure, as they’re aren’t winning any silverware and they have way too many players in the position that Klate plays. So starting may be a problem, keeping his place in the starting 11 is another issue and Pirates play a different type of football compared to Super Sport United.

Another casualty suffering from wrong decision making illness is Thembinkosi “Terror” Fonteni. A phenomenal striker, who was doing well for South Africa and his team Maccabi Haifa. He managed to secure himself 44 appearances and 17 goals whist still in Israel. He then decides to come home, the year before the world cup so that he can “secure” himself a place in the 2010 South Africa world Cup Squad. What a decision. How do you come back from an international team that gives you game time, and your scoring goals, to a team like Pirates with so many “stars” and then hope to do well and end up in the SA squad. This was a dismal decision as Terror Fanteni only appeared 12 times in a Pirates jersey and only managed to get the ball at the back of the net once.

There are other dismal decisions we can talk about, like the Teko issue of saying “no” to a Newcastle United offer, in the 2008/2009 season or Jabu “Pule” Mahlangu, coming back home from helping a 1st division team secure a place in the Swedish Premier League and the he leaves.

Like I always say, there are debatable issues about this article, but the fact is some of these decisions that these guys make are really are stupid and it shows no thought was put into making it. Till next week enjoy.