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Cape Town - Kaizer Chiefs surprised many by naming a new technical team with John Paintsil replacing legendary Doctor Khumalo as assistant coach.
'16 Valve', as Khumalo is affectionately known as, has been an integral part of the Amakhosi first team for years and will now be redeployed into development at the club.
Paintsil and Chiefs coach, Steve Komphela, previously worked together at Maritzburg United where the former defender played for two seasons.
The 35-year-old, who represented the Black Stars 88 times and donned the national colours during the 2006 and 2010 FIFA World Cup editions, has been released from United in January.
“I have worked with John before [at Maritzburg United] and at Chiefs we all know that pressure is immense - you’ve got to be addicted to pressure, and there is nothing that is more perfect than winning trophies,” said Komphela as quoted by KickOff.
The former Team of Choice coach had Mandla Ncikazi as ideal replacement for Khumalo but the coach was not willing to leave Golden Arrows.
“Paintsil has played in England for several teams, I worked with him at Maritzburg United, I know his personality, his character and his qualities, both technical and humanistic,” he said.
“At the back of having gone through a lot of searching and identifying he came up as the candidate who topped the list and so we went for him.”
