Orlando Pirates – Coaching Merry Go Round And The Future

Opinions are divided on the resignation of Josef Zinnbauer as Orlando Pirates head coach. One certain thing is that over the last five years, their managerial appointments have had the hallmarks of a club struggling to find direction.

To recap: A decade ago, the Buccaneers entered the new season as treble champions. To be fair, there was instability at the helm even then, as Júlio César Leal started the season in charge after taking over from Ruud Krol, but he was later replaced by Augusto Palacios.

However, the Pirates team of today is a shadow of the side which completed the double-treble under the Peruvian in 2012.

Pirates found some degree of stability under Roger De Sá and Eric Tinkler on either side of Vladimir Vermezović’s brief stint in charge. Then, in 2016/17, the club hit rock bottom and has been trying to bounce back since.

Muhsin Ertuğral

For former Kaizer Chiefs coach Muhsin Ertuğral, presiding over Orlando Pirates was always going to be a tough task. However, few expected it to go quite as badly wrong as it did when he took charge ahead of the 2016/17 season.

After just nine matches in charge and only three wins, the experienced Turkish coach stepped down off the back of a 6-1 humbling at the hands of SuperSport United. To be fair, he was not the last Bucs coach to suffer such humiliation.

Augusto Palacios

Palacios returned to the helm following Ertuğral’s departure. However, he struggled to recapture the magic of 2012 as the Bucs suffered a string of embarrassing results after a fairly bright start to the Peruvian’s most recent stint in charge.

Most notably, the Buccaneers suffered a 6-0 humbling at the hands of Mamelodi Sundowns. It was not long before Palacios, too, was back out of the hotsteat.

This stint in charge was perhaps best summed up by his comments in the wake of a 2-1 defeat to Bloemfontein Celtic in late 2016.

“We have too many players who don’t understand what it means to be here. We need players with character to play for a big team like Pirates. The players need to have more hunger,” Palacios said.

Kjell Jonevret

Jonevret oversaw the late stages of the 2016/17 season as Pirates capitulated to an 11th-place finish in the league. Results were poor, but he made it to the end of the campaign.

The Swede left in August 2017, leaving the Buccaneers scrambling for a successor on the eve of the new campaign. On television show Fotbollskanalen, Jonevret blamed the “political aspect” of the club for hindering his coaching, which caught the ire of Orlando Pirates.

Milutin Sredojević

‘Micho’, as he was affectionately known, restored Pirates as a competitive force. For two seasons running, they were narrowly beaten to the league title by Mamelodi Sundowns.

However, the Serb left under a cloud early in the 2019/20 season amid allegations of sexual assault.

Once again, Pirates were left scrambling to find a new coach in August — a less than ideal situation for Dr. Irvin Khoza.

Rhulani Mokwena

Micho’s sudden departure was to have grave consequences for the club. His former understudy, Rhulani Mokwena, was qualified for the job at hand. Granted, he made some questionable decisions, but the environment around him was not conducive to success.

Mokwena had been handed the job in a hurry and there were question marks from day one about whether or not he was the right man — some from outside the club, but some reportedly from within its ranks.

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He remained calm and composed until a fateful Soweto derby in which he accused Ernst Middendorp’s Kaizer Chiefs of “thuggish behaviour”. After back-to-back derby defeats, he did not last long at the helm afterwards.

Mokwena’s success at Mamelodi Sundowns alongside Manqoba Mngqithi has shown that he did not fail at Pirates due to any lack of coaching ability on his part — perhaps for this boyhood Buccaneer, it was a case of right place, wrong time.

Josef Zinnbauer

Zinnbauer arrived in South Africa as a relative unknown despite a reasonable CV. He temporarily brought order to the club as they scraped a third-place finish in 2019/20.

After winning the MTN8 the following season, the Bucs would have hoped to have kicked on with a star-studded squad, but in this regard, they failed to keep moving forwards.

The writing appeared to be on the wall during the off-season. Once again, after the MTN8 defeat to Swallows, Pirates have to find a new coach in August.

The Future

Steve Komphela was linked with the Orlando Pirates job over the off-season, with his former assistant, Mandla Ncikazi, having reportedly been brought to Mayfair to serve under the former Kaizer Chiefs boss.

However, Komphela already has commitments at Mamelodi Sundowns and the Bucs reportedly called off their pursuit of him. Pirates have the option of promoting Ncikazi now that he is already at the club.

SowetanLive have reported that Ncikazi is expected to lead the team alongside fellow assistant coach Fadlu Davids for the meantime. Both have had successful runs in charge of KwaZulu-Natal sides in recent years — Ncikazi at Golden Arrows and Davids at Maritzburg United.

There is no clear answer on who will take over next at Orlando Pirates, but for the meantime, the players will have to fire themselves up to prove to the next coach that they are worthy of wearing the famous black and white.