After a brief time away, Ernst Middendorp returned to South African football on Friday when he was appointed head coach of struggling Cape Town Spurs.
The 65-year-old Middendorp, who failed to keep SV Meppen in the third tier of German football, will attempt a similar rescue in the DStv Premiership with the Urban Warriors.
After 11 games, the newly promoted Spurs are rooted to the foot of the table, having picked up just three points, and are firm favourites to go back down to the National First Division when the season ends.
However, in Middendorp, they have a coach who has got teams out of a similar hole in the past.
In 2016, He famously got Maritzburg United out of jail when they avoided the drop in dramatic fashion.
And in the 2019/2020 season, he came within a whisker of delivering a league title for Kaizer Chiefs.
Under Middendorp, Chiefs were crusing towards the title, and were tripped up towards the end when the season was brought to an abrupt halt by the Covid-19 pandemic.
The German first arrived in South back in 2005, when he took on the Kaizer Chiefs job for the first time.
IOL Sport