Orlando Pirates striker Tshegofatso Mabasa has given his honest take on the club’s new head coach, Abdeslam Ouaddou.
The Moroccan mentor took over the hot seat at Pirates last month to lead the club for the 2025/26 Betway Premiership season.
Ouaddou arrived at the Soweto giants after impressing in his short stint with Marumo Gallants in the second round of the previous campaign.
During his time at Gallants, Ouaddou helped the club avoid relegation and enabled the team to play an enterprising brand of football.
The former AS Vita SC coach left Bahlabane Ba Ntwa after failing to agree on a new, improved contract with the club boss Abram Sello.
Ouaddou was appointed as the head coach at Pirates to replace Jose Riveiro, who left after the expiry of his contract at the club. The Spaniard has since joined Al Ahly. The Spanish tactician spent three seasons with the Soweto giants and won five trophies, including three successive MTN8 titles.
WHAT MABASA SAID ABOUT ABDESLAM OUADDOU
With Pirates looking to continue being one of the competitive teams on the African continent, Mabasa has revealed that Ouaddou is a demanding coach, and he has identified defending set pieces as the first concern that needs attention.
“I think the biggest thing about coach [Ouaddou] is that he’s a very demanding coach, but he loves his players at the same time,” Mabasa said.
“And he’s also an encourager, quite similar to coach Jose. There’s not a lot that coach Ouaddou is trying to change. It’s only how we defended our set pieces and how we dealt with transitions.
“He’s just trying to improve the areas that we lacked last season, and we feel it’s mostly from set pieces. We lost the [CAF] Champions League because of set pieces; we conceded three goals against Pyramids FC from set pieces, and we’re out of the tournament.
“It’s very funny how we lost the Champions League on set pieces, yet in the country, we were the best in terms of defending set pieces. So, coach Ouaddou is just trying to improve on areas we lacked last season.”
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