Orlando Pirates head coach Abdeslam Ouaddou has praised the club’s management for showing patience in him after the challenging start to his tenure at the Soweto giants.
The Buccaneers appointed Ouaddou as the coach ahead of the 2025/26 Betway Premiership season. The Moroccan mentor took over the hot seat at Pirates, replacing Jose Riveiro, who left the club on the brink of the expiry of his three-year contract.
Ouaddou was a surprise choice for the Pirates job after spending only six months in the PSL with Marumo Gallants before taking over at the Ghosts. In his early days at Pirates, Ouaddou faced a lot of criticism after losing two opening matches of the league against Sekhukhune United and Gallants.
After the two defeats, several Pirates supporters called for Ouaddou’s sacking, questioning his credentials to lead a club of Pirates’ calibre. But the 47-year-old tactician has since found his feet at Pirates, winning the MTN8 and Carling Knockout Cup titles. The Soweto giants are also set to end the year 2025 at the summit of the log stanings with 28 points after 12 matches.
Ouaddou has heaped praise on the Pirates management for not sacking him, admitting that he was lucky because at some clubs, you get fired after losing a few matches.
WHAT OUADDOU SAID ABOUT HIS EARLY STRUGGLES AT PIRATES
“When you lose two games in such a big club, there’s fire in the house straight away,” Ouaddou said after beating Gallants 1-0 in the Carling Cup final at the New Peter Mokaba Stadium on Saturday.
“You need to find solutions, and I can’t lie to you and say I didn’t feel the pressure. I still feel the pressure in every game; if you don’t have this pressure every game, you need to stop that job.
“This positive pressure helps you to deliver a performance and to be better, but on the other hand, when you have 10 new players, they need to get your ideas and game model. I think the guys did well because they quickly got the ideas.
“Sometimes in some clubs they put three to four months for you to adapt. I’m quite satisfied with how the players reacted, it helped us to have results. You know what is very important as well? Is the trust and I’m very lucky because I’m in a club managed by professional people, and they are thinking about football, have a vision and a project.
“They know the targets they want to reach; I was lucky because they know that these two games we lost are part of the process, and they gave me time. In some other clubs, they don’t give you time; you lose one or two games, you are out.”
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