THE ASTONISHING RESURRECTION OF CAPE TOWN CITY FC: yes, it's a modern day miracle

TRAIL BLAZER: Eric Tinkler

RESURRECTION can be a tricky business. The last documented example was some bloke called Lazarus over 2000 years ago. And you wouldn’t expect him to get up and out-run all the healthy disciples gathered for his miraculous comeback would you?

But that’s exactly what Cape Town City have done. With some gusto. After opening their second coming with a 2-0 win over Polokwane City on August 23, born-again City beat a side called Kaizer Chiefs three days later.

Last month they beat African champions Mamelodi Sundowns amid a current run of SEVEN consecutive wins that has seen them top the PSL twice and reach the Telkom KO final. Saturday’s thumping 4-1 thrashing of Free State Stars in the TKO semi-final was no shock, it was simply further evidence of an astonishing rebirth.

John Comitis, the former Ajax Cape Town chairman who just last week fell off the PSL executive gravy train, appears to have successfully breathed life back in to the long dead football club known as Cape Town City.

The giants of the old all-white NFL, City won titles in 1973 and 1976, before they were officially buried after liquidation in 1979. African Warriors purchased the lifeless cadaver. There was no pulse, the club was six feet under, pushing up daisies.

But then along comes Comitis and, as I revealed two weeks before the face, the official unveiling decades after the faux cremation: Cape Town City FC were given a second life for a reported fee of R50m.

The brief five months since that announcement on June 29 have been eventful. Remember, Comitis did a deal with the Morfou brothers at Mpumalanga Black Aces to move their franchise 1,538km south.

Fourteen players made the journey. The PSL top scorer Collins Mbesuma was left behind. So was the much-vaunted junior link with Manchester City. And the fans from eMalahleni to Mbombela? Ignored.

It was a deal which broke FIFA rules, a deal which nearly led to Free State Stars being replaced in the PSL by twice-relegated Moroka Swallows. A deal which should NEVER have happened.

But Comitis is nothing if not determined to win a personal war against his old club Ajax Cape Town. He let Muhsin Ertugral, the Turkish coach who lifted Aces to a record fourth place last season, go to Orlando Pirates. In return, he picked up the man Irvin Khoza didn’t want to fire, Eric Tinkler as a sweetener.

With former Pirates assistant Craig Rosslee working behind the scenes, Tinkler added a few foreigners, adopted the old blue-and-gold City colours and somehow, after being “10 players short” a few weeks before the season started, he put out a side good enough to top the PSL and reach the TKO final before the club had got halfway to their first birthday.

It’s hard to pinpoint exactly how Tinkler has managed this. Lebogang Manyama was made captain after seven months of injury, Shu-Aib Walters is a vastly under-rated goalkeeper, Aubrey Ngoma, the former Orlando Pirates dynamo, picks up Man of the Match awards like confetti. Lehlohonolo Majoro, unwanted inland, made his way down the N1 to contribute a few goals.

Not a bad collection of journeymen. But as Tinkler said on Saturday, that's not the secret: “These players work for each other. That’s all a coach can ask for. I’m happy for them. That’s how it works here. This is an opportunity to make history.”

The man vilified for finishing seventh in the PSL and reaching the African Confederations Cup knows his stuff. He'll trouble Stuart Baxter in the TKO final against SuperSport United. I defended him all last season. He was a nugget on the field, and he’s proving just as tough on the bench in the Mother City.

SOLVED: THE SOWETO GIANT-KILLINGS... why Pirates and Chiefs will go no further in the MTN8

OvoNO! Two assists for Pirates goalkeeper

FROM a poorly attended mid-week start to the PSL to the fascinating MTN8... and straight to an international break. Not the best way to start the South African football season but hey, it's been absorbing.

Unless you support Orlando Pirates or Kaizer Chiefs.

In a season barely two games old, the demise of BOTH Soweto Giants in the lucrative MTN8 competition should come as an earth-shaking upset to long-suffering local football watchers.

Sadly, as I have been saying for some time, it’s not much of a surprise. Kaizer Chiefs, though dominant in possession, failed 1-0 against three-month-old Cape Town City while Orlando Pirates were beaten 2-1 by Bidvest Wits despite an early penalty.

In truth, the AmaKhosi and the Buccaneers should be sneering at these small clubs with tiny support bases. Both Soweto clubs still enjoy the R1bn 5-year joint-sponsorship from Vodacom - not to mention the benefits of the Carling Black Label Cup and numerous other sponsors.

But the Khoza-Motaung alliance, now forged in marriage of daughter and son as well as self-serving sponsorship, has failed to bring the expected advantages of monopoly. One glance at the MTN8 semi-final draw shows Sundowns against Chippa United and Wits against Cape Town City over two legs. Shocking.

In theory, Pirates and Chiefs both enjoy huge support, drawing the majority of fans in every city in South Africa, no matter the opposition. Lately those crowds have collapsed, but even with gate income at an all-time low, they should be in massive profit.

Yet still here we are, with both clubs, who finished a disappointing 5th and 7th in the PSL last season, out of the MTN8 at the first hurdle.

For me, the reasons are clear and have been highlighted here repeatedly. Bobby Motaung, the Chiefs “General Manager” refuses to spend his millions on transfer fees, preferring to sniff out free signings and cheap deals with agent Tim Sukazi.

Not much has been said about the way Sukazi’s clients now dominate the Chiefs technical bench too. A few weeks ago, boss Steve Komphela - who said after Friday’s night’s defeat “pressure is a pleasure” - hinted that the public execution of 20 Chiefs players in June and the arrival of 8 cheap replacements and a couple of youth squad members was not exactly how he planned to start his second season at Naturena.

And at Pirates, where three top youngsters were sent to the excellent Dance Malesela's Chippa and a trio of Free State Stars were drafted in during the Panyaza Lesufi/Moroka Swallows fiasco, Muhsin Etrugral (swapped with Eric Tinkler when Mpumalanga Black Aces were deleted) is little better off.

To his credit Etrugral took the blame for Saturday night’s humiliation against Gavin Hunt’s tougher, harder, better Clever Boys. Twice. He said he was at fault for the way the Buccaneers went “backwards, backwards” and he scapegoated himself for the absence of Brighton Mhlongo in goal.

And this is where we come to the real problem. While neither Chiefs nor Pirates appear to have spent much for three transfer windows - R3m for Ghana’s Bernard Morrison from AS Vita appears to be the only fee paid - it’s not just a lack of talent which keeps Soweto’s football in the second class compartment.

What I don’t understand in this: WHY does Komphela, so intelligent, so articulate, continue to start Bernard Parker when clearly the man is a spent force? And WHY did Etrugral take Felipe Ovono, a rare home-born Equatorial Guinea international, off the transfer list and shove him in to the first team?

Parker, as I said repeatedly on twitter, had no impact in Cape Town. He was whisked off at half-time to general acclaim from the on-line AmaKhosi. Ovono was trending on the social networks for inadvertently assisting in both Wits goals.

My question is this: who selects the teams in Soweto? Previous regimes at both clubs claim to have their team list changed in the dressing-room minutes before the game. Both those coaches are now gone. You'd assume with Tebza Moloi and Doc Khumalo now OUT of the dressing room, all this would come to a halt.

But here were are, a week in to the new season, and the bizarre selections - once termed “sinister forces” by the now-dumped Pirate Lucky Lekgwathi - are still with us. Mind-blowingly silly decisions by two coaches under HUGE pressure to perform.

Etrugral clearly knows he has to toe the line in his early days at Parktown. But for Komphela, with one dodgy win over relegated AmaTuks since February, must surely rely on his own instincts at this point.

Or tell us EXACTLY who things work at Kaizer Chiefs before it’s too late.