Orlando Pirates captain Innocent Maela has lauded the club’s academy for churning out top talents while revealing how the attitude of Relebohile Mofokeng and Mohau Nkota is leading them to success.
The two forwards have been delivering man of the match performances for Pirates despite their relatively young age, earning them plenty of plaudits.
Maela feels the praises are merited and credits the club’s academy and coaches for ensuring they produce great players but also reserved praise for the 20-year-old wingers for making the work of coach Jose Riveiro easy with their positive attitude.
“I think a lot of credit needs to go to the academies and the coaches they’ve worked with,” said Maela as per FARPost.
Maela lauds ‘coachable’ youngsters
“Also, as an individual, we need to give credit to the guys [Mofokeng and Nkota], not only the youngsters but everyone, the humility that we have in the squad is unbelievable. It helps us a lot to grasp new information and new tactics and for the players to be coachable.
“We believe that if we train well and work hard, then we do enough to deserve to play. We wish them the best of luck, and they should keep going, keep their feet on the ground, and keep being humble to get better.
“A lot of credit needs to go to the academy they come from and the coaches they worked with, and for them to be able to grab information and be coachable, we wish they can keep going and keep improving.”
Can the Pirates ‘kids’ lead them to success?
Mofokeng has become a star since bursting onto the scene in the final months of the 2022-23 season and was crowned Young Player of the Year at the PSL Awards last season.
He has started this season on fire with four goals and seven assists in 16 games while Nkota, who was promoted to the senior team this campaign, has four goals in seven games, including two in the CAF Champions League this week as Pirates beat Algeria’s CR Belouizdad 2-1 on Tuesday.
