Itumeleng Khune has seen two sides to Kaizer Chiefs: the first, a period of dominance where the trophy cabinet was consistently filled with silverware, and the second, a challenging era marked by a nine-year trophy drought.
As one of the club's most iconic players, Khune, who has scooped seven major honours with the Glamour Boys, including three Premier Soccer League titles in 2005, 2013 and 2015, has witnessed firsthand the highs and lows of Chiefs' footballing journey and in a recent interview with Soccer Laduma, the 37-year-old answered the question on many fans' minds - what changed at the club during this difficult period?
"I think we just left some bolts to be loose in certain instances and those were the bolts that were happening off the field and they started affecting the team on the field because I remember with our generation of Morgan [Gould], we used to have senior players whom when things were not going well, were all captains on the field, but the only difference was Itu was wearing the armband, but we were all leaders and at some point, because as soon as [Willard] Katsande, [Bernard] Parker, [Siphiwe Tshabalala], Yeye [Reneilwe Letsholonyane] left, I was exposed to more or less being left alone because I was left with Tower [Eric Mathoho] - but Tower is not a talkative person, he's so quiet,' he said.
"But I was sharing a room with him, and I would always run things past him before I go to the rest of the guys. That has always been my leadership skill to say, let me involve everyone before I make the final decision and I think the more the guys started leaving from the generation of 'vat alles' [take everything] winning trophies, I think the new players who came in, I can't really say, they lost their hunger, but it's because they were never exposed to that. The guys who were there in my time had the taste of winning and as soon as they moved to Chiefs, there was no need for us to motivate them to win, they were already players who have won silverware, and they knew how it felt. So unfortunately, the ones who came afterwards didn't experience all of that and it was difficult for them to win. I think most of the time players were just on the field just to be counted that they are Chiefs players, but you don't want to spend 20 years in the club or even two years and not even win a single cup. And at that time, how many cups do we play for in a season? You can't tell me a club like Kaizer Chiefs can't win a single cup every season," he explained.
Read: Chiefs Coach: They Will Make Some Mistakes
Chiefs, to their credit, did bring in big-name players like Leonardo Castro, Khama Billiat, Keagan Dolly, Yusuf Maart and others, though that did not appear to be the tonic needed for their ongoing drought.
"I think what was missing was just like I said, to tighten that bolt so that there's continuation from where we were used to winning things to where we were not winning. So I think there were a few things that needed to be tightened and those are all off the fields matters that ended up affecting players on the field and being unable to get the desired outcomes," he said.
Read our full interview with Khune in our latest edition of the Soccer Laduma newspaper.
Read: Former Sundowns Winger Surfaces At Pirates
