The coaching staff of Orlando Pirates and the players of this Betway Premiership champion team, oppose the idea that, Patrick “Tito” Maswanganyi, who does not look down on Bucs fans, is a difficult person to work with.
Since the Pirates milestone was shown, iBucs Camp on television recently, Maswanganyi’s name and behavior are high since there are times when he is a little short of holding hands with the head coach, Abdeslam Ouaddou.
This happened during the break of the Pirates game in February, where they won against Marumo Gallants with one of Maswanganyi’s goals scored in the first half.
Although it is not clear what caused them to fight, there is a scene where the Pirates players intervened between Maswanganyi and Ouaddou who looked like they were fighting each other.
Mandla Ncikazi, the deputy coach at Pirates, is one of those who protected Maswanganyi in this milestone, including his Namibian colleague, Deon Hotto.
Ncikazi admitted that Maswanganyi is the type of person who can be described as short-hearted but this does not mean that he cannot work with him.
“There are times when there is a gap between me and him when we fight for work, but there are also times when I am the one who hugs him and encourages him when things are not going well for him,” said Ncikazi.
“As a person, I have to learn to work with players like Maswanganyi. I am in the process of visiting him at home and sitting down with his parents so that I can understand a lot about him.”
“This does not make him a bad person or difficult to work with. Personally, I see that he was created but also gifted for soccer.
“Perhaps, as coaches, we should bother to understand the players’ ways of doing things according to the places where they grew up.
“The player from Tembisa behaves like the people of this township, so maybe we have a job to do as coaches.
“One thing we should reduce is (as coaches) knowing that things should always happen our way because there are players like Tito who believe that what they are doing is right at the time regardless of how another player or coach sees it,” said Ncikazi.
In this same interview, Hotto said: “Working with Tito is not a problem if you bother to understand him. He has a small heart, yes, but this does not mean that it is difficult to be his colleague.”