Pirates midfield maestro Motshwari seeks improvement in front of goal

It’s been a positive couple of weeks for coach Josef Zinnbauer and his Orlando Pirates charges in pre-season, but now comes a huge challenge for the Buccaneers, with the quest to defend their MTN8 trophy, beginning this weekend.

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Pirates are set to test if their work has really paid off with a Soweto derby tie against Swallows FC in the quarter-finals of the Wafa Wafa tournament, to be played at the Orlando Stadium on Saturday.

Bucs will be hoping for another sensational campaign in the MTN8, which saw players like Ben Motshwari and Deon Hotto making valuable contribution in the road to the success of lifting the cup last season, and ending a long trophy drought at the club.

Motshwari, who was among the nominees for the MTN8 Last Man Standing award, which was eventually won by Hotto, says he is looking forward to the beginning of the 2021/22 season and adds that there are areas that he is working on improving in his play.

“For me, I think I started the season well, but it didn’t end well. As much as I played a lot of games with no injuries, which was a confidence booster for me, the season still didn’t end well. There are certain aspects of my game that I would like to improve on, like scoring more goals and getting more shots on target. Those are just small things that I have to look at,” said the Bucs midfielder.

Going into the new campaign, Motshwari adds that the team also had a brilliant start, but things got off track along the way, especially in the DStv Premiership, where he believes they could have ended the league in a better position than third spot.

“We started the season very well last season, getting a trophy after so long. But we didn’t get a good run in terms of the league, we had a bumpy start here and there. It happens in football … but I think we could have done better in terms of the position (we finished in).”