AmaZulu president Sandile Zungu has revealed the mandate given to new Usuthu coach Pablo Franco Martin.
On Tuesday, the KwaZulu-Natal side announced that the former Getafe and Simba SC tactician will take over the reigns at the club following the departure of Ayanda Dlamini and Romain Folz.
Zungu has always been consistent in his message that he wants AmaZulu in the top half of the table and compete for silverware, but they only finished in 12th place in 2022/23, leading the president to wield the axe over several roles.
The Usuthu boss has revealed that Martin’s main task is to lead the cup back to the half of the table, with the ambition of qualifying for the CAF Champions League or CAF Confederations Cup and compete for every trophy on offer.
“The coach will be landing here in South Africa in the next couple of days. He’ll be introduced to the players, he will observe and he will make suggestions on how to go forward,” Zungu said.
“And at a time we’ll sit down with him to set the targets. But one of the targets that have been made known to him, which are standard targets [at AmaZulu] is that we want to finish in the top four.
“AmaZulu are top quarter team in South Africa and want to be known as such. We want to cement our place among the top four teams in South Africa.
“We want to conmpete it for every cup on offer, whether it’s the league, cup or the Nedbank Cup, MTN8.
“In the forthcoming season we will not be participating in the MTN8 cup but in the subsequent seasons we want to compete for all of those.
“So that is a target that we set for him. There are much more specific targets that we’ll have to discuss and agree with him.
“But the one of finishing in a descent position in the top four, and then specifically to participate in the CAF Champions League or the CAF Confederations Cup is our ambition and we believe that he is ready for those requirements and he believes he is equal to the task to lead us down that path.”
