Swiss role as Royle helps out Kusunga
Date published: 24 September 2013
JOE Royle has lifted the lid on how Genseric Kusunga turned down more lucrative rival offfers to make the unusual switch from the Swiss border town of Basel to Boundary Park.
The Geneva-born Angola international defender (25) experienced a culture shock on his introduction to league action at Rotherham. But amid the chaos, Kusunga showed glimpses of his potential.
And if anyone can spot a player who stands a chance, Joe Royle certainly can — as he proved when plucking countless stars from the scrapheap for Athletic in the glory days of the 1990s.
“I saw a reserve game in which Kusunga played and my son had been working with his agent to get him into this country,” explained the legendary ex-Athletic manager.
“I saw him play in the same trial game as the Italian lad (Matteo Lanzoni) and they both looked very good, so we brought him to Latics first because I knew Oldham wanted a centre-half.
“It is up to him now. He has played Champions League football, including Basel’s game against Manchester United which the Swiss side won. On the one game I have seen so far he certainly has a lot of promise and it’s up to him to take that forward.
“He has the pedigree but he has got to settle in quickly. It is a different culture. Believe me, he had better financial offers.
Kusunga missed the home draw with Crewe with a slight hamstring problem, but could come back into contention for the visit to Crawley on Saturday.
Royle, a regular watcher of Athletic’s reserves matches at Chapel Road, has taken a special interest in the fortunes of Lee Johnson’s management to date and feels the way he has the team playing is very promising.
“I saw them against Tranmere and the first half was as well as I have seen a Latics team play for years,” Royle added. “The football was easy on the eye, they played with width, but the one thing they lacked on the day was the finish.
“Then they fell to a rather unfortunate penalty. There seems to be a trend – they are giving away too many and whether that’s a lack of defensive awareness or they just a switching off, I don’t know.
“What I do know is that Lee Johnson is a very promising young man. I think he is doing a terrific job and I don’t think they are far away from being a force in the division.”
