Mninawa Ntloko
12 December 2007
opinion
Johannesburg — THE jokes have been coming thick and fast since embattled coach Ernst Middendorp was sacked by German side Arminia Bielefeld a couple of days ago.
The story goes that a man was walking along Oxford Road and stumbled upon an old lamp that had been dug up during the excavation of the Rosebank street for the Gautrain.
He picked the lamp up, rubbed it and out popped a genie.
The rather bored-looking genie said: "It's been a bad year, so you only get one wish."
The man thought about it for a while and then said: "Nothing depresses me more than the traffic jams on the N1 to Pretoria. So could you please build us a wider freeway so that traffic flows freely at all hours of the day?"
The genie laughed out loud and said: "Nah, can't be done. That's impossible cause that freeway is beyond anything even I can do.
"So, chap, you're going to have to come up with another wish."
The man agreed, and tried to think of a really good wish.
Finally, he said: "I think that Ernst Middendorp is a very good coach whose talents have been undermined by a series of tough breaks. Arminia Bielefeld will realise later that they had a good coach who was way ahead of his time. Even when Middendorp was coach at Kaizer Chiefs, he was just unlucky and was not appreciated by that club as well. So could you make Chiefs, Bielefeld and indeed, the world, realise that Middendorp is one of the best coaches in the world?"
The genie paused for a while and then said: "About that freeway, how many lanes do you want to Pretoria?"
Another story goes that Middendorp took his players out to a fancy restaurant for a team-building exercise because morale was low.
The hapless coach signalled to the waiter that he was ready to place his order.
"What would you like to order sir?" the waiter asks Mazinyo, as Middendorp is known.
"I'll have the pork chops," replied Dorpie.
"Okay sir, and what about your vegetables?" the waiter asked.
"They can have the same!" Middendorp said.
While all the jokes have probably pleased Chiefs supporters no end, the fact is the situation at Bielefeld is no laughing matter.
The Bundesliga club is in such a pathetic state at the moment that we have to be alarmed about what all this means for our national team players in the side.
Bafana Bafana's No1 goalkeeper, Rowen Fernandez, midfielder Siyabonga Nkosi and striker Sibusiso Zuma have all been part of an abomination that has managed to concede 38 goals in just 16 matches.
Bafana coach Carlos Alberto Parreira selected Fernandez and Zuma for his African Nations Cup-bound squad and you have to wonder what state these presumably demoralised two will be in when they face Angola in Ghana on January 23.
Hell, Fernandez was actually in goal for his team when Bielefeld was on the receiving end of a 6-1 hammering from Borussia Dortmund on Friday.
That 6-1 result was part of an incredible list of tennis scores Bielefeld have accumulated this season on their way to the shocking total of 38 goals conceded .
And when you consider the fact that the top-scoring team in Germany -- Werder Bremen -- have scored 37 goals so far this season, you get a better idea of the unfortunate mess that is Bielefeld.
Small wonder, then, that Bielefeld MD Reinhard Saftig said he could hardly bear to look at the Bundesliga log table these days, especially at the "goals against" column.
But Middendorp is unlikely to get sympathy from the Chiefs supporters because they believe that the club is still feeling the effects of the German coach's incident-filled stint with Amakhosi last season.
Even Chiefs coach Muhsin Ertugral said a few months ago that Middendorp had crippled the club with his rigid tactics and that it would take a while to exorcise the former mentor's ghost.
But I doubt that Dorpie will be too depressed by all of this because Bielefeld will apparently have to pay out something in the region of € 1,5m for the man to go away quitely.
Ntloko is deputy sports editor.
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