{"id":14225,"date":"2012-09-03T15:39:36","date_gmt":"2012-09-03T13:39:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/09\/soccer-angry-sundowns-fans-threaten-dutch-coach-neeskens\/"},"modified":"2012-09-03T15:39:36","modified_gmt":"2012-09-03T13:39:36","slug":"soccer-angry-sundowns-fans-threaten-dutch-coach-neeskens","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/soccer-angry-sundowns-fans-threaten-dutch-coach-neeskens\/","title":{"rendered":"Soccer-Angry Sundowns fans threaten Dutch coach Neeskens"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\t\t<span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"articleLocation\">PRETORIA, Sept 3<\/span> (Reuters) &#8211; Former Dutch international<br \/>\nJohan Neeskens needed a police escort to protect him from angry<br \/>\nsupporters after the South African club he coaches lost a league<br \/>\nmatch on Sunday, local media reported.<span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Police were called in to restrain a crowd of angry fans,<br \/>\nchanting for Neeskens to be sacked and threatening to attack him<br \/>\nafter his Mamelodi Sundowns lost 2-1 at home to Maritzburg<br \/>\nUnited in a premier league match.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Neeskens, a standout performer at two World Cups, is in his<br \/>\nsecond season at the helm of the Pretoria-based club, whose<br \/>\nbillionaire owner, mining magnate Patrice Motsepe, is often<br \/>\nreferred to as the &#8220;Roman Abramovich of Arivca&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>The nickname stems from his profligate spending on new<br \/>\nplayers and high-profile coaches, similar to the methods emploed<br \/>\nby English Premier League club Chelsea&#8217;s Russian owner.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Neeskens failed to deliver a trophy last season, losing in<br \/>\nthe cup final and finishing fourth in the league, six points<br \/>\nbehind the champions.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Two previous Sundowns coaches &#8211; Frenchman Henri Michel and<br \/>\nSpaniard Antonio Lopez &#8211; both departed after comparable threats<br \/>\nof fan violence following a sequence of poor results.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>The 60-year-old former midfielder played at the 1974 and<br \/>\n1978 World Cups, scoring a penalty in the final of the first<br \/>\ntournament he attended in the 2-1 defeat to hosts West Germany.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>His managerial career includes stints at Barcelona and<br \/>\nGalatasaray as an assistant to Frank Rijkaard and a head<br \/>\ncoaching role at NEC Nijmegen.<\/p>\n<p> (Reporting by Mark Gleeson in Cape Town; Editing by John<br \/>\nO&#8217;Brien)<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"copyright\">\n<p>         \t\t\u00a9 Thomson Reuters 2012 All rights reserved<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>PRETORIA, Sept 3 (Reuters) &#8211; Former Dutch international Johan Neeskens needed a police escort to protect him from angry supporters after the South African club he coaches lost a league match on Sunday, local media reported. Police were called in to restrain a crowd of angry fans, chanting for Neeskens to be sacked and threatening [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[830,2370,183],"class_list":{"0":"post-14225","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-south-africa","7":"tag-news","8":"tag-reuters","9":"tag-south-africa-2","10":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14225","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14225"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14225\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14225"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14225"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14225"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}