Strikers to miss big payday

Not for the first time, the Absa Premiership top scorers’ chart does not make for pretty reading.

With a paltry 13 goals, Kaizer Chiefs’ Knowledge Musona is the country’s top marksman in the league with just three more matches to conclude the season.

He is followed closely by Katlego Mphela, the Mamelodi Sundowns striker who went on strike after his transfer dispute with the club, only to find he’s not missed much in spite of being away for over four weeks.

Mphela, whose 17 goals won him the Golden Boot last season, could yet become the first player to retain the award if he overtakes Musona. But with just three games to go, whoever clinches the award is almost certain to miss out on a massive payday at the PSL year-end function. Two seasons ago, the league introduced stringent rules when rewarding the top scorer. As it stands, should Musona’s 13 goals win him the award, he would receive just R25 000. If he netted more than 15 goals, the figure would double. Scoring more than 20 goals, which has happened just three times in 14 PSL seasons, would bank a striker R75000.

That 20-goal feat looks certainly beyond the strikers this season, and three experts on Monday blamed a range of factors - such as poor technique and kick-and-rush football - for this.

“I think today’s strikers are shy to hit the ball. Instead they want to walk it into the net,” said Daniel Mudau, the former Sundowns striker who claimed the Golden Boot in 1998/99 with 24 goals.

“You look at the games and the strikers are playing too deep, marking in midfield and fetching the ball. When there’s a rare shot at goal and the ‘keeper spills it, they are not there to pounce on the rebound. Most of our strikers strive to score only beautiful goals, forgetting any goal is worth celebrating, no matter how ugly it can be.”

The man who helped turn Mudau into a fearsome striker in the late 1990s, Ted Dumitru, fingered poor coaching methods as the main reason for the failure of Premiership forwards.

“Too many of our teams put emphasis on physical training. Everything is about power, when we have to work with the ball a lot more,” said Dumitru, who coached Sundowns to two successive league titles with Mudau spearheading his attack.

“Another factor is that we do target shooting instead of practicing scoring. A player like Mambush (Mudau) used to practice over one hour a day on his scoring, and he improved even though initially he had only the minimum basics.

“Look at the amount of chances being wasted – it’s because of poor technique. Amajita (SA under-20 team) lost to Mali (on Sunday) simply because they couldn’t score.”

Dumitru also blamed the “long-ball approach” which is preferred by most PSL teams. “You need to put the ball on the ground to create scoring chances. If you kick it long, it suddenly is a 50-50 ball and most times a defender wins it over the striker. A team like Ajax Cape Town are scoring because they play short passes, using speed rather than shooting aimlessly.”

But Dumitru, who also coached Collins Mbesuma during his record-setting 25-goal haul at Chiefs six years ago, is encouraged by Musona’s performance, even though the Amakhosi striker went a bit off the boil this year. “There’s little difference between Musona and Mbesuma simply because they got exposed to international football at an early stage.”

Former Chiefs striker Pollen Ndlanya, who finished one goal shy of Mudau’s record in 1998/99, said local strikers “should be ashamed of themselves”

“A mere 13 goals at this stage of the season is pathetic,” Ndlanya said. “I think our strikers do not compete among themselves. I used to compete with Mambush, looking to overtake him and he was always worried about me.

“Nowadays you find a striker going two months without a goal. You should be ashamed of yourself for that.” - The Star

TOP GOAL SCORERS

13 – Knowledge Musona

12 – Katlego Mphela

11 – Lehlohonolo Majoro

10 – Thembinkosi Fanteni; Thulani Serero; Bradley Grobler; Nyasha Mushekwi

9 – Collins MbesumaPreviously

2009/10 – Katlego Mphela (Sundowns) 17 goals

2008/09 – Richard Henyekane (Arrows) 19

2007/08 – James Chamanga (Swallows) 14

2006/07 – Christopher Katongo (Cosmos) 15

2005/06 – Maime Niang (Swallows) 14