Marumo Gallants have unveiled 28-year-old Frenchman Lafitte Alexandre as their new head coach – but this time, the club insists they’re taking a very different approach to when they previously gambled on a young, untested coach in Romain Folz.
Read: In Images: New Faces Spotted At Chiefs!
Back in 2022, Gallants made headlines by parting ways with Dan Malesela, who had led the club to the Nedbank Cup final, and then appointed 31-year-old, Folz.
While the Moroccan coach’s tenure at Gallants was short-lived, he quickly became one of the most intriguing coaching figures on the continent with spells at Horoya AC, FIFA, AmaZulu, and most recently, Mamelodi Sundowns.
Speaking to the Siya crew at the unveiling of Alexandre in Sandton, Gallants chairman Abram Sello said the club has taken valuable lessons from the Folz experience and is determined to implement them with their new appointment.
“It is a well-calculated risk,” Sello told the Siya crew. “We learned a lot about what went well with the previous young coach, and what didn’t go well. This time, we’re doing things differently. The profiles of the two coaches are different, too. But what makes us happy is that it shows we weren’t completely wrong in taking that kind of chance – after Folz left us, he went on to bigger teams and made a difference.”
Sello pointed to Folz’s journey post-Gallants as proof that the club’s strategy of identifying young, progressive coaches has merit, even if the execution needs refining.
“After he left, he went to FIFA, then Horoya, AmaZulu, and Sundowns. So we asked ourselves: were we wrong, or were we right? The answer is that we were on the right track, but we need to revisit what went wrong previously and reshape our approach.”
Gallants’ faith in Alexandre signals a continued commitment to innovative coaching ideas, but this time with more experience behind the scenes to support their new man at the helm.
Read: Breaking! Chiefs Unveil Two New Signings
