Mokwena was walking with a ticking bomb

I mean, to be fair, I believe Mokwena will be one of the coaches in the country in the long run, but this wasn’t the right time for him to lead a team like Orlando Pirates, which is under immense pressure to deliver trophies.

Mokwena has some good football brains. You could tell from his post-match interviews and how he analyses games that this is a guy who knows his story very well. But the timing was just bad. It takes time to build a winning team at a club like Bucs, which has some big-name players with huge egos.

And the last 15 games that Mokwena was in charge of showed that things weren’t just working out.

Yes, Mokwena was the head coach on an interim basis, but that was an opportunity for him to prove his worth and had he done well, Pirates management wouldn’t have seen the need to find a new coach.

With the club already under pressure, Mokwena was already feeling the heat with the results not forthcoming despite some good brand of football that was played. But, what is good football when results are not coming your way – it means absolutely nothing.

I agree with Bucs legend Edward Motale who earlier this week told me that Pirates chairperson Irvin Khoza made a good choice by taking Mokwena back to the assistant coach role and hiring Josef Zinnbauer as the new coach.

One thing Mokwena highlighted and caught my attention was when he spoke about his CV. He said potential employers will be looking at his stint as Pirates coach and feel that this is not the right man for the job.

And again, I do believe in empowering young coaches and seeing them coaching big clubs like Pirates, but things just weren’t working out for him.

Now that he has tasted the hot seat, I believe that one day Mokwena will rise to his best and be counted among the best in the business. But now, he must learn as much as he can and once the next call up comes, he must rise to the occasion.

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