Sekhukhune Pick Journeyman with Itchy Feet for Coach.

Ba Bina Noko’s new man in charge Hyballa is a seemingly combative coach who hardly lasts the duration of his contract.

Desperate times do indeed call for desperate measures. That perhaps best describes Sekhukhune United’s choice of coach for the upcoming season.

Ba Bina Noko announced Germany’s Peter Hyballa as the man to lead their team for the 2024/25 campaign after they parted ways with Lehlohonolo Seema late last season. The choice, however, smacks of desperation after the club’s failure to secure their initial targets in Morena Ramoreboli and Fernando Da Cruz.

Sekhukhune had been in advanced negotiations with Ramoreboli only for ‘the Orlando Pirates slayer’ to opt to rather seek renewal of his contract at Botswana’s Jwaneng Galaxy where he won the league title on successive seasons. 

On the other hand, Da Cruz – the 51-year-old Frenchman – chose to join Kaizer Chiefs as an assistant coach to Naserddine Nabi whom Amakhosi are expected to announce soon. Da Cruz was Tunisian Nabi’s second in charge at Morocco’s FAR Rabat.

And so it was that Sekhukhune had to ‘settle’ for Hyballa, an apparent journeyman coach whose record suggests he has itchy feet, the 48-year-old hardly ever staying at a club for the full duration of his contract as per Wikipedia.

He has worked at ten clubs in his 12-year-old coaching career with the longest spell he has had being the 18 months he spent at Slovak Supa League side DAC Dunajská Streda. And he had arguably his best coaching time there as he led the club to a runners-up position but left when contract renegotiations did not work out.

But the man just cannot seem to hold on to a job for long. Get this, Hyballa has worked nine and four months at NAC Breda over two different spells. He lasted just three months at Esbjerg fB and two months at Türkgücü München while his relationship with AS Trenčín was for a mere month.

It is perhaps the reasons behind his early departures from the clubs which should have rang alarm bells for a Sekhukhune side looking to not only have a fantastic Premiership season but one eager to improve on their group stage participation in the CAF Confederation Cup.

Described as a ‘fanatical’, the man who had some measure of success as a youth coach is seemingly renowned for his ‘controversial’ statements during interviews and behaviour during matches.

He is apparently wont to having ‘conflicts with management’ as well as ‘clashes with players’ and there have also been reports of ‘physical and mental abuse’ of players. At one club he even had a fall-out with the legends, leading to his departure.

All that would not be so bad had he been producing stellar results, but there is no such in his CV. And so, given my view that any foreign coach local clubs import to our football should be of the kind of quality we do not have here, I am left to opine that this is a miss.

Sure, Sekhukhune will tell us they did their homework, conducted their due diligence and found Hyballa to be the right man for the job. And with the kind of good work done by yet another German – Sead Ramovic, whom some of us initially doubted – at TS Galaxy, Ba Bina Noko could well be on to something. After all did we also not wonder just why Orlando Pirates hired Jose Riveiro?

All that notwithstanding, my initial reaction to the appointment is one of 

skepticism. I foresee a short-lived relationship, forged as it appears, out of desperation.