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What with soccer having invaded cricket as the warm-up game of choice lately, it should come as no surprise to Highveld Lions supporters that they may well have Pep Guardiola to thank for their team’s recent success.
New head coach Enoch Nkwe, who has won both the trophies he has contested (the Mzansi Super League T20 competition and the 4-Day Franchise Series) since his appointment in September, is a devoted disciple of the philosophy of the Manchester City serial winner.
The youngest domestic franchise coach when he took over from Geoff Toyana last year, Nkwe, now 36, revealed at the time that he drew confidence from Guardiola’s story.
“Pep Guardiola coached Barcelona – a huge institution – at the age of 36,” said Nkwe before his first match in charge. “I thought to myself: ‘If he can do it, what’s stopping me? He had even less coaching experience than I do, he only had one year of coaching the B-team and had to lead a group of serious players, massive egos, people who had achieved so much.
“He’s someone I look up to, someone I follow closely by reading his books. He’s not someone who hides things, he’s quite deep and reveals quite a lot. That gives me a lot of confidence as well.”
Nkwe’s caveat to his bullishness was: “I understand that it’s not going to be a smooth ride. It’s going to be a massive challenge and I actually hope it’s going to be. I’m excited about what lies ahead and keeping on learning.”
Two trophies later – at the first time of asking – Nkwe finds himself having to answer tricky questions about whether he’s surprised at basically matching his role model, having set out to do exactly that.
“As a coach, you come in, you set up a strategic plan and you don’t really expect things to happen so quickly. It was very important for me to understand how the system works and not put any investment into silverware.
“We discussed with the team that, if it did happen, we had to be prepared for it because in a high-performance environment, you’ve got to be ready for opportunities. But, yes, it has happened quickly. If you had to take me back to September and ask me whether we’d actually win a campaign like this, my answer would be a straight no.”
One man who had no problems admitting he was surprised was Nkwe’s chief executive, Greg Fredericks.
“We always knew he was an excellent coach, very structured, disciplined and very clear on his philosophy of coaching. But, honestly, we would never have thought he’d have two trophies in the bag by now.
“We told him we wanted to see him be competitive in all games and all competitions, we wanted to see him in the top three of the four-day competition and in the final of the other two competitions. But we really didn’t expect these types of results in his first year.”
Fredericks attempted to explain what it was that Nkwe had done to get the Lions on his wavelength so soon: “I think it was the way he made his expectations of players very clear. When he sat with the players for the first time, they asked him: ‘When do we start practising?’
“He said: ‘You’re going to practise on your own at first, and if you work hard and you’re fit enough when we meet, you’ll be part of my squad. If you don’t have self-discipline, you won’t play until you’re ready.’ He put the responsibility back on to the players,” Fredericks said.
Nkwe preferred to heap all the credit on his senior players and the rest of the squad for the way they responded to his attempts to instil a culture where “guys could be themselves, reach out to each other and get the best out of each other”, an approach he calls “the Lions’ way”.
“The maturity and professionalism the team have shown is the kind of culture we’ve been working on – a very inviting culture where someone from the semi-professional set-up was made to feel part of the team.
“For me, that was magnificent and boils down to the leadership of the guys. The likes of Temba Bavuma, Rassie van der Dussen, Stephen Cook and Omphile Ramela have really played a massive role by believing in the vision that we set for ourselves.”
Being so far ahead of schedule comes with challenges of what to do now as the Momentum One Day Cup just started with a defeat and a washed-out game.
“We do recognise we’ve got a new competition and we need to go back to the drawing board and start all over again. Yes, the environment is pretty confident at the moment, but it’s a brand new ball game and we’ve got to be realistic.”
