It’s been more than nine years and not much is known on why one of the biggest clubs in SA football has battled for so long to win the league title.
A tenth campaign is starting in a couple of days, but in all honesty Orlando Pirates are still a team lacking key playing personnel and are no match to Mamelodi Sundowns, who have been PSL champions in the past four seasons.
Pirates’ Soweto rivals Kaizer Chiefs, equally desperate to win a fifth league title in the PSL era after going six seasons without grabbing one, are at least looking more serious in their recruitment strategy for the coming season.
A few average players, including defenders Kwanda Mngonyama (27) from Maritzburg United, midfielders Goodman Mosele (21) from Baroka FC and Bandile Shandu (26) from Maritzburg, are among the additions in the Bucs squad.
Promising 20-year-old Ghanaian striker Kwame Peprah is set to join the Buccaneers from Ghana Premier League outfit King Faisal.
Peprah scored 12 goals in 32 league games for Faisal last season and will look to partner with Gabadinho Mhango, who has been a lone striker in Bucs’ attack, with Zakhele Lepasa and Tshegofatsho Mabasa among Bucs’ long-term injuries.
But other than those few new faces, we’re looking at the same old Pirates for the 2021-22 season. Another top five finish is the best that can be expected of them.
Former Lamontville Golden Arrows coach Mandla Ncikazi has been roped in as one of Josef Zinnbauer’s two assistants in a technical setup that may have lacked in quality but certainly not in terms of numbers in recent years.
Zinnbauer seemed determined to offer a positive outlook for his team on Wednesday when addressing the media ahead of Saturday’s encounter against Swallows FC in the last eight of the MTN8, the title Pirates won last season to end a six-year spell without any major trophy.
“It’s normal in football to have supporters disappointed when the team is not performing,” said Zinnbauer, who joined Bucs in the middle of 2019-20 (December 2019).
“At the end of the day it’s always the result that’s important. Last season was without preseason, but we have more information now than last season on how we can play and we have more competition in the team.
“I also have more experience now in terms football in Africa. I think we have a good direction now. But it’s always disappointing for the supporters if we don’t win titles.
“We’ve had more time and more information about what we can get from the players, and at the moment we don’t have as many injuries like at the beginning of last season.”
Even with those words, as a Bucs fan you’d be hardly convinced of any change until you see what this team is capable of delivering on the field of play.
The biggest obstacle that always seems to derail whoever is Bucs coach is that the coach is never in total control of the players – those who join the team or those who get sold or loaned to other clubs.
And the more the Bucs hierarchy has a coach like Zinnbauer, who may know little of the players at his disposal, the better for them as it gives them more leeway in influencing what should be the coach’s decisions.
The bigger reason Pirates have not won a league title in the past nine years is because of how the squad is chosen, with the head coach having little say on who the club recruits.
What is needed at Pirates is not just the quality players, whom they obviously lack in certain areas, but a management team that is willing to give whomever it appoints as head coach total control in choosing his squad.
But that can only happen if Bucs management is prepared to install a head coach who knows the ins and outs of SA football. That coach must be given licence to get players who fit the club’s culture and profile.
If Bucs can trace how Sundowns’ success in the past eight years came about, they’ll recall it was after the appointment of Pitso Mosimane, a local coach with a proven track record, that things really changed.
You give a coach like Mosimane full control of the squad and enough technical support, you see the results.
It’s so easy, but this looks impossible for the Bucs because even when they still won titles the management was accused of getting involved in the technical team’s duties.
So as the new season begins, Bucs fans should be wary of raising their hopes given that nothing seems to have changed in how the club chooses to manage its affairs.
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