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Robson Sharuko : Senior Sports Editor

STUART Baxter is one of the best coaches in the South African Premiership but is the Scotsman the right man to provide Warriors’ gaffer Callisto Pasuwa with the tips he needs to boost his technical capacity ahead of his biggest assignment at the 2017 Nations Cup finals in Gabon? Reports from Swaziland suggest a deal to take Pasuwa on a two-week attachment stint under Baxter at SuperSport United is being worked out ahead of the 2017 Nations Cup finals and now awaits the endorsement of ZIFA.

But can the Scotsman provide the technical guidance that Pasuwa needs to add value to his coaching knowledge and make a big difference to how he will handle the massive assignment of guiding the Warriors in Gabon?

Baxter has certainly done very well in the South African Premiership after guiding Kaizer Chiefs to the League and Cup double in his first season at the Amakhosi in 2012 /2013 and then winning the league title again in 2014/ 2015 after having suffered the embarrassment of seeing Mamelodi Sundowns overhaul an 11-point deficit to be crowned champions the previous season.

However, there is a huge difference between coaching, and succeeding, in the ABSA Premiership and doing so in the tough trenches of African football with both clubs and national teams.

After guiding Chiefs to the South African Premiership title in 2012/ 2013, Baxter and his men — whose attack was led by Knowledge Musona — plunged into the CAF Champions League and, after a routine victory over their Mozambican opponents, they met Congolese outfit AS Vita in the second round.

Chiefs were outclassed in Kinshasa, as AS Vita powered their way to a comprehensive 3-0 victory in the first leg, and while the Amakhosi won the reverse fixture 2-0, the damage had long been done.

Ironically, the same AS Vita side had knocked out Pasuwa’s Dynamos, in the first round of the same CAF Champions League, with the Congolese side holding out for a goalless draw in the first leg in Harare before a controversial penalty in Kinshasa helped them win 1-0 and progress to the next stage of the tourney.

While AS Vita needed a controversial penalty in Kinshasa to beat Pasuwa and his men, the Congolese were in a league of their own in the next round, as they comprehensively hammered Chiefs 3-0 in the same city.

Chiefs dropped into the CAF Confederation Cup and in the play-off round, Baxter’s men lost at home (1-2) and away (0-1) to Ivorian side ASEC Mimosas as they nosedived to a comprehensive 1-3 aggregate defeat to crash out of the tournament.

But the shortcomings of the same ASEC Mimosas side, who had imposed their superiority over Chiefs in the play-off round, were highlighted in the group stages of that tournament as the Ivorians failed to win any of their group games, losing three and drawing three, finishing bottom of a group that featured AC Leopards, Coton Sport and Real Bamako.

Baxter’s critics, who question whether he should be the right man to provide technical guidance to Pasuwa for the Nations Cup adventure, will also point to the Scotsman’s tenure as Bafana Bafana coach between April 2004 and November 2005 with the mandate to extend South Africa’s appearance at the 2006 World Cup finals.

Bafana Bafana had appeared at the 1998 and 2002 World Cup finals and were targeting a hattrick of appearances, at the world’s biggest football festival, and although Baxter led them to back-to-back victories over Cape Verde, then considerable lightweights in the game on the continent, they lost both matches to Ghana (0-3 in Accra) and (0-2 at home) to lose the battle for a place in Germany to the Black Stars.

The same Black Stars would lose 1-2 to the Warriors at the 2006 Nations Cup finals in Egypt.

A third place in their group, five points behind Ghana, was enough to take Bafana Bafana to the 2006 Nations Cup finals but the SAFA bosses, used to seeing their team at the World Cup finals, felt Baxter had come short and in November 2005 the Scotsman was axed from his job.

It’s something that still haunts him to this day.

“There was some sort of scepticism about my tenure as the Bafana coach,” Baxter told the Chiefs website after winning the South African Premiership Coach of the Year in 2014/ 2015 having led the Amakhosi to the league title.

“That’s also why I was so eager to take the job at Kaizer Chiefs when it was offered. I wanted to prove that people were wrong at the time. We’ve won two doubles in three seasons, so I probably got it a bit more right this time.

“Maybe I should have been given a bit more time to get things right.”

Baxter left Chiefs, in that blaze of glory, and moved to Turkey where he joined Super Lig side Genclerbirligi.

But things didn’t go according to expectations for the Scotsman with his side falling 2-3 to Rizespor in the first game before crashing to a 1-3 defeat to Antalyaspor in their second game and the club’s bosses decided to sack Baxter, after just two games last season, saying he wasn’t the right man for the job.

The coach blamed the club’s chiefs for the poor start, claiming they sold five of their best players before the start of the league.

Baxter enjoyed relative success in Europe when he guided Swedish club AIK to the championship and, in the UEFA Champions League, they came up against giants FC Barcelona, Arsenal and Fiorentina and finished bottom of their group.