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Middendorp has no immediate advice for Bucs new coach

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The 29th of February 2020 is the next date for the Absa Premiership Soweto derby  The benches of both Kaizer Chiefs and Orlando Pirates will have German coaches.

Chiefs head coach Ernst Middendorp has revealed that he doesn’t know much about Pirates newly appointed head coach Josef Zinnbauer except that he’s heard about him before.

Zinnbauer (49) is 12 years younger than Middendorp (61) and when the Amakhosi coach was still coaching Arminia Bielefeld in the Bundesliga he was still playing at the time. A lot has been said about the all-German Soweto derby but Middendorp didn’t really want to read much into that focus on their nationality.

Middendorp, who is known for being a difficult coach to understand, doesn’t see a reason why he should offer advice.

Middendorp and Zinnbauer come from two different generations of German football coaches. And there’s a huge difference from the two generations, Middendorp started coaching at the highest level in Germany in the late 80s and early 90s whilst Zinnabauer only started in 2005 and his big break in the Bundesliga was just five years ago.

The era of Middendorp belonged to the coaches who believed more in percentage football who were looking for effectiveness with a bit of ultra-defensive approach. But the modern German coaches like Jürgen Klopp and Julian Nagelsmann (32) believe more on possession football inspired by the revolution that took over in German football mid-2000s.

And it’s believed that this is the school of thought that Zinnbauer is also coming from having coached at SV Hamburger in the Bundesliga (for few months). But according to Middendorp they are all for modernisation in their approach including the scientific approach.Report by Velile Mnyandu

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