2019 Telkom Knockout Quarterfinal Preview: “It isn’t about to start now,” Phumudzo Manenzhe – Former Orlando Pirates striker

“I want to urge the Buccaneers to understand that it gets too dark before the sun shines again. There’s a bright light coming soon and I know Mourinho (Rhulani Mokwena) and his technical team are always looking to improve the team. No one should doubt their commitment and dedication to the club, even if the results are not going our way. Rhulani may not have the experience as a head coach but we all deserve a chance and some of us wouldn’t be where we are today if no one gave us a chance. The support structure is there and we all know that everyone is supporting Rhulani and his technical team.

We have the likes of the chairman, Screamer Tshabalala, Augusto Palacios and all the other experience campaigners supporting our technical team so I know it is only a matter of time. Yes the supporters wouldn’t want to see Rhulani lose this game and I will tell our coach about this simple history and statistics about Pirates.

When Palacios took over, halfway through the season, Pirates lost 3-0 to Santos in Cape Town in his first match. The next game was the Soweto derby and he won it and we went on to win the league. So this is one game that can turn the season around for Rhulani.

Another thing will be the centre-back pairing, when we won the CAF Champions League, we had a ball-playing centre-back in Mark Fish, with a man-marker in Gavin Lane next to him. Roy Baretto won the league with Mbulelo Mabizela as a ball-playing centre-back with Papi Khomane as a man-marker. Coach Kostadin Papic’s team had Lucky Lekgwathi who was a ball-playing centre-back with Tonic Chabalala as a man-marker.

At the moment, I feel we are playing with two ball-players at centre-back and we need to have a good man-marker to balance things out. We haven’t lost to Chiefs in five seasons and it is not about to start now.”