Thread by @TurkishNabs

Ladies and gentlemen, I’m back with another thread, this time on coaching in the #PSL.

In this thread I will focus on SA coaches in the local game, average coaching age compared to Europe and give you some other interesting stats along the way

THREAD

As a start, I looked at how many South Africans have coached the big three #PSL teams. What I found was worrying.

I began by looking into #KaizerChiefs and it shocked me that Chiefs has only had ONE South African head coach since 1994 (@komphelasteve 2015-2018) 😳😰

In fact, @ErnstMiddendorp, the current Chiefs coach, first appeared on the local scene in 2005 to coach Kaizer Chiefs and has coached SIX different #PSL clubs thus far.

This is his second stint at Chiefs along with spells at Martitzburg, Chippa, Bloem Celtic, FS Stars & Arrows

Next I looked at @OrlandoPirates. The Ghost have fared much better with five South African coaches since the year 2000 in the #PSL but I again found something concerning.

It came as a bit of a shock to me that none of those coaches lasted more than a year in the hot seat 😰

If you look further into the Pirates coaching stats, you'll find that Bucs have only had three South African permanent head coaches in the last twenty years. Criag Rosslee was assistant to Ruud Krol while @coach_rulani was assistant to Micho and then interim coach. #OnceAlways

The last of the big three is @Masandawana who have the longest serving coach in the #PSL in @TheRealPitso. Pitso has been head coach since 2012, but besides him, #Sundowns have only had three permanent head coaches who were South African in the last twenty years! #DownsLive

While the picture among the big three #PSL sides in terms of South Africans at the helm is worrying, the picture looks a lot better for the league as a whole. Nine of the 16 clubs in the #PSL are managed by South Africans which rises to ten if you choose to add Kaitano Tembo

I then went one further and looked at the number of clubs that each coach in the #PSL has managed and that too yielded some interesting results. @komphelasteve has 9, Da Gama 7 and Middendorp 6 while Tinkler, Hunt and Larson have managed 5 clubs respectively #AbsaPrem

What also stood out to me in the stats above is the lack of South African first time head coaches. Lehlohonolo Seema is the only South African first time head coach of four currently plying their trade in the #PSL. Rulani was sent back to Pirates by Chippa and wasn't considered

Finally, I calculated the average age of our coaches which I found to be 53.0667. The two oldest coaches are Ernst Middendorp and Cavin Johnson at 61 years old while the youngest is Lehohonolo Seema at 40. We don't do badly at all compared to Europe on this score #PSL

The latest research data I could find on managerial age in Europe which was from the 2017/2018 season. In the Premier League, the average managerial age was 49.95 years, the Bundesliga had 44.6, La Liga 50.45 and Serie A had an average age of 49.8 years per manager #PSL

Overall, on the coaching current makeup of the league, I think South Africa is in a relatively good spot. I would like to see more South Africans being given a chance at Chiefs, Downs and Pirates. I would like to see less managers who have failed in Europe and across Africa

On the other hand it costs a lot of money to run a club and #PSL status is very valuable. Club owners don't want to lose that status and trusting the reigns of a club with someone untested is a massive risk that few are willing to take.

In the next thread, I will look into the route to coaching in South Africa. That thread is in the works and should be ready sometime in the coming week.

@threadreaderapp unroll