Molefi Ntseki

Education

Ntseki is a teacher by profession.^[1]

Career

Career As A Footballer

Ntseki played for Unisaints and Welkom Stars in the early years of his playing career. He however did not make it to the professional level despite being a skilled and accomplished player. Ntseki had two professional jobs - playing semi-professional football and being a teacher.^[1]

Teaching

After working as a professional teacher for a decade between 1988 and 1998, Ntseki moved into coaching on a permanent basis.^[1]

Club Coaching

In 1998, Ntseki quit teaching and ventured into coaching. He was given the chance to work at his former club Welkom Stars.

He did not last at Welkom Stars but he came back stronger to take over the coaching reigns in 2002. Ntseki resigned a year later to start the Harmony Sports Academy. He was in charge of the academy until 2007 when he was hired as head coach of African Warriors in Qwaqwa.

At the time, African Warriors were campaigning in the National First Division. He was there for two years between 2007 and 2009.

Ntseki then got the job as Serame Letsoaka's assistant at SA U20 team and later served under Macky Chenai and Solly Luvhengo in the same capacity.

He also served as assistant to Shakes Mashaba, who was then South Africa's U23 head coach.

In September 2010, Ntseki joined Bloemfontein Celtic as an assistant coach and he worked at the club until 2014 when he was appointed as head coach of Amajimbos (SA U17).

Bafana Bafana

Ntseki took over from Stuart Baxter, who resigned as head coach of Bafana Bafana after two years in charge. Ntseki worked with Baxter for two years as his assistant while he also assisted Shakes Mashaba alongside Owen Da Gama and Thabo Senong in the past.^[1]

He was fired after just nine games in charge after he failed to successfully lead the team through their 2021 Africa Cup of Nations qualifying.

Bafana fell at the final hurdle after suffering a 2-0 defeat to Sudan on Sunday 28 March 2021, in a match from which all they needed was a draw to book their spots in Cameroon.^[3]

Sports anchor Robert Marawa said Molefi Ntseki refused to tender his resignation letter following a marathon long emergency meeting on 30 March 2021. Marawa said Ntseki's refusal to resign would see him being fired as Bafana Bafana head coach.^[4]

In the meeting, Ntseki gave mitigating factors that led to South Africa finishing third in Group C on 10 points‚ behind Ghana on 13 and Sudan on 10.

The mitigating factors include the tough scheduling that was handed to Bafana in some of the rounds of Group C‚ which Ntseki had complained about ahead of the match in Sudan.

In the opening round‚ Sudan played Sao Tome and Principe at home (winning 4-0) on a Wednesday (November 13 2019)‚ and flew to South Africa to meet Bafana (losing 1-0) on that Sunday (November 17).

South Africa had a day less to prepare as they lost to Ghana in Cape Coast on Thursday (November 14)‚ and had to travel by bus overnight night to fly from Accra on Friday morning‚ arrive in Johannesburg in the evening‚ train on Saturday‚ and play on a Sunday.

In the final round‚ unusually‚ because the last two rounds of group matches almost always are played at the same time‚ Sudan beat Sao Tome 2-0 away‚ and Bafana drew 0-0 at home against Ghana. This again left the South Africans a day less to travel and prepare.^[5]

Achievements

• Guiding Amajimbos to the 2015 Fifa World Cup in Chile.

• Helping the SA U17 team qualify for the 2015 Afcon tournament, where they finished as runners-up after losing to Mali - which was their ticket to Chile.

• In 2016, Amajimbos qualified for the Cosafa Cup tournament and they lost 3-1 on penalties to Namibia in the final.

• Ntseki helped the SA U17 reach the Cosafa Cup final in 2018, but then again, they lost 1-0 to Angola to finish as runners-up.

• As Baxter's assistant, he helped Bafana qualify for the Afcon 2019 finals in Egypt, where Bafana reached the quarter-final stage.^[1]

References