Cape Town City defender Keanu Cupido has opened up on the role and importance of new assistant coach Lebogang Manyama at the club.
Cupido is perhaps one of the unluckiest players to not be included in the Bafana Bafana provisional AFCON squad after the exceptional form he’s shown over the past two months that has earned him several Man of The Match awards, as City flew up the DStv Premiership table.
The 25-year-old says Manyama has become an important part of Eric Tinkler’s technical team, as he always has an ear for “the younger players” while also not shying away form putting any older stars in their place.
“Yeah, he’s still like a ‘Marc’ to us, Marc is like that on the field when we play. So he feels like a ‘Marc’ to us,” Cupido told iDiski Times‘ Rob Delport in edition 135.
“Young players can go to him and speak to him, even if they don’t want to go directly to the head coach. They go to Lebo, they speak to Lebo. Or they go to coach Diogo (Peral) as well. Coach Diogo as well, he’s a very nice guy.
“So I think it’s nice for players that are afraid to go to the head coach straight, so he helps those players a lot, and he can go to the head coach and tell the coach, ‘This guy is struggling with this’.
“So for Lebo, it feels like you’re speaking to a teammate rather than a coach, and that helps most of us here at a team. So it’s just nice to have him around as well, because he gives most players confidence and Lebo isn’t scared to tell big players, ‘Listen, you need to improve, you are not training well, you are not doing well today. You need to step up’.
“So I think that’s also a good thing for us as senior players, where Lebo can come in and step in and say ‘Listen, you need to pick up your socks’.”
You can read Cupido’s full interview where he also discusses his Bafana ambitions, becoming a leader at CT City and the club’s brilliant turn in form, in this week’s iDiski Times – available for free on our website.
