Orlando Pirates star Patrick Maswanganyi has opened up about the challenges of his limited game time at the Soweto giants and his exclusion from the Bafana Bafana squad set to play in the AFCON tournament in Morocco.
Maswanganyi has been in and out of the starting line-up at Pirates in the current Betway Premiership season under head coach Abdeslam Ouaddou. The Moroccan tactician took over the coaching gig at Pirates in the off-season, filling the big shoes of Jose Riveiro, who left the club in May 2025 for a project at Al Ahly.
Ouaddou has made a handful of changes in the Pirates squad after the club signed over 10 new players in the past transfer window. The Sea Robbers signed players such as Sipho Mbule, Tshepang Moremi, Masindi Nemtajela, Lebone Seema, Sihle Nduli, Oswin Appollis, Kamogelo Sebelebele, Sinoxolo Kwayiba, Yanela Mbuthuma, and Nkosikhona Ndaba.
The arrival of new players has resulted in Maswanganyi losing his regular starting place in the Pirates line-up. In the current campaign, ‘Tito’ has 14 matches in all competitions and scored four goals.
His limited playing minutes saw him left out of the Bafana squad that will jet off to Morocco in the coming days for the Nations Cup. The former SuperSport United attacker says it has been difficult not to play regularly for his club.
WHAT MASWANGANYI SAID ABOUT HIS LACK OF GAME-TIME AT PIRATES
“I think you can’t control some of the things in life. This has been hard for me to watch other players playing, but you need to understand that those people are working hard,” Maswanganyi said on Metro FM.
“For me, it’s never been the case of asking the coach why I’m not playing, but for me it’s to show the other guys, especially the new ones, that I can also be on the bench and support them because they are helping us at the moment.”
Maswanganyi further revealed that he already knew that he wasn’t going to make the Bafana Bafana AFCON squad because of his struggles for game-time at the Buccaneers.
“I already knew that I wasn’t going to make it to the AFCON squad because I wasn’t playing. I would get a few minutes to play, but I think when I was called up in the national team, I had problems with small injuries, and those kinds of things affect your mind and your position in the national team because there are a lot of players in the country that are working hard to be in that position.”
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