Sport Matters

  The biggest enemy for South African clubs in African club competitions has, over the years, been the mindset of the players. South African players have a long-standing problem of denying themselves the opportunity of self-empowerment. The players tend to depend on their coaches to prepare them mentally about the conditions and any other info about their opponents and their countries. For time immemorial, going to war with no information about your foe has always been a suicidal mission. At least, the insanely brave and super strong can undertake such expeditions and expect to conquer at a high risk. SA players operating in the local Premiership are however not made like that. Ahead of international matches, they need thorough prep but for that to reach optimum levels, each player must take the trouble to find information about the opponents and their country. The players must share notes about what they found and discuss options about how to deal with they have discovered. Th

Africans have in the past decade or two become big consumers of the English Premier League, a passion they top up with significant spend on the merchandise of their favourite clubs. South Africans have also joined the fray in recent years, with a large portion of football banter on social media being about happenings in the EPL.  Personally I found a story of interest in English football this week through the crowing of Fulham as the champions of the English Football League Championship, the second-tier of the English game. I took interest in the matter given the impressive size of the Championship, and the historical reputation of the majority of the 24 clubs as previous EPL campaigners. These include really big names of English football in the yesteryear, such as Nottingham Forest who finished fourth, Blackburn Rovers (9th), Queens Park Rangers (12th) and Birmingham (20th).  Apart from the Championship being richer than some of premier leagues in Europe, it is also a highly competiti