Young Bafana founder Bernardo Steinado has opted for an in-house appointment of Bradley Barnes to take over the reins as head coach of the defending ABC Motsepe league champion.
This appointment comes as a surprise given the list of esteemed coaches, such as Shakes Mangaliso, interviewed for the position last week following the mutual departure of Carlos Manuel last Monday.
Barnes was serving as the club’s Head of Youth and was also the Motsepe team’s manager before being promoted to head coach.
According to Steinado Barnes’ appointment makes logical sense given that he is very familiar with the club and was also part of the technical team that won the league last season under the mentorship of Ashraf Calvert and Dougie Williams.
Steinado explains: “So, ja, we’ve gone for an internal solution and Bradley Barnes is taking over at the helm and Sikelela Ndlovu, who is our ex-under 18 coach who is also local from Lwandle and has grown as a coach and aspires to coach in the professional ranks and senior level, has taken over as his very proactive assistant and he’s been running the sessions for the past week. Our goalkeeper coach Josh will be the other assistant to Barnes.
Steinado emphasized that the recent restructuring at the club will not change their objective of retaining the title they won in their debut season in the Second Division.
“We are looking forward to the next transfer window because there will be a lot of changes obviously, with some old faces that have been in the league with us just to steady the ship and to take the pressure off the academy boys that we have promoted. That’s kind of the lowdown from me,” the Young Bafana boss stated.
Regarding the possible appointment of the former Bafana Bafana striker Shaun Bartlett, Steinado confirmed: “We did interview Shaun (Bartlett) and that wasn’t necessarily for a coaching role, it was just to kind of hear if he is keen to get involved with the project on a technical advisory side and that is still pending so that is kind of the update from us,” he concluded.
