Zwane: I Wish We Are Playing On The 1st January
AmaZulu co-coach Arthur Zwane says if it were up to him, he would have loved to play on New Year’s Day after securing a vital win on Friday.
In a rain-soaked Durban on Friday, Usuthu defeated Royal AM 2-1 with goals from Hendrick Ekstein and Mlondi Mbanjwa, both scored in the first and second half.
John Maduka’s side pulled one back through Levy Mashiane in the second half, who capitalized after Usuthu goalkeeper Richard Ofori failed to claim a powerful shot from Mfundo Thikazi.
As Royal AM pressed forward in search of an equalizer, Zwane and his co-coach Vusi Vilakazi implemented a defensive strategy to secure the victory, registering their third win of the season.
AmaZulu climbed to 11th place on the Betway Premiership log with nine points from eight matches. Their next fixture is a crucial encounter against Mamelodi Sundowns at the Moses Mabhida Stadium on December 24th, with the Tshwane giants having recently appointed Miguel Cardoso as their new head coach, replacing Manqoba Mngqithi.
“As South Africans, we have this mentality that, when things are going rosy for us, we tend to relax,” said Zwane.
“There is no time for that. Tomorrow (Saturday), it’s back to work and we have to start preparing for the next game and I’m happy that we are playing in December, we are playing on the 24 December and then it’s Christmas.
“We need to change our players’ mindset, they must know that this is business, we are in the business of football and I have always been saying that. And we are playing on the 29 December (against Cape Town City away), I wish we are playing on the 1st January like overseas. That now the professionalism will be far much better because there will be no this hype of December, we don’t want that.
“We made them aware the importance of grinding points now in December to take ourselves out of the situation that we are in right now. We do well now, I think it is going to be better in January because we would have learnt a lot out of these games that we are going to have to improve on.”
Zwane and Vilakazi, who replaced the underperforming Pablo Franco Martin, have instilled a renewed sense of purpose in the AmaZulu players. Under Martin’s leadership, AmaZulu lost their opening three matches and found themselves at the bottom of the table.
“I have seen a lot of improvement,” added Zwane.
“Just small details, not big details because the previous coach was doing well and unfortunately, he was not getting the results. Finer details in the game that you work on just to elevate the players and make them to reach another level, make them start to believing in themselves, that is what we are seeing.”
