Dan Malesela is confident that his return to Baroka will contribute to the club’s ambition of securing promotion back to the Betway Premiership.
The experienced mentor last coached Bakgaga in the 2023/24 Motsepe Foundation Championship campaign. He led the club to third place on the league standings but was sacked following a fall out with club boss Khurishi Mphahlele before the promotion play-offs.
He went on to join Marumo Gallants but was recently dismissed after a woeful run of results and returns to a Baroka side in a lowly eighth-place on the First Division standings from 22 games.
Malesela told FARPost he doesn’t hold any grudges from his first spell and is eager to make mark his at the club once again.
He said: “Look, one is the understanding of this work that made me return. So if you don’t understand football, then you are going to have a difficult time adjusting to things.
“I understand that sometimes there are things that have to do a lot with emotions than maybe logic. I also understand that club owners are put under pressure by other forces as opposed to their own decisions.
“But the biggest of them all is the slim chance that we have to gain the promotion that brought me here. One really needs to achieve that. I am seeing an outside chance of us doing that because I probably would be a useless man if I were not dreaming of getting this team promoted,” he added.
“Besides anything else, this team is sitting in a good position in terms of resources. It’s actually much better than a lot of teams. So those are basically the things that made me come back. Also, considering the fact that there are a number of players I have worked with who are still with the club.
“It won’t be a big ask for them to adjust to what I want to see them do. Obviously, there are new things I have introduced. But there are a lot of things they know. I have a lot of reasons [why I came back]. But the biggest one is to make sure that we make the playoffs and ultimately promotion.”