Ouaddou denies rift as Pirates later announce Ncikazi exit

Shortly after coach Abdeslam Ouaddou said there was no rift between him and Mandla Ncikazi, Orlando Pirates confirmed the assistant had left the club.

Pirates said in a statement the move follows discussions with management on Thursday morning where Ncikazi expressed his desire to take up a job as a head coach of a Premiership club, though he did not specify which one.

Ncikazi leaves the club with nine trophies he earned as part of the Pirates’ technical team where he mainly served as assistant to Jose Riveiro and Ouaddou.

“Mandla leaves with our gratitude and our blessing. His contribution to Orlando Pirates has been evident throughout his time with us,” Buccaneers chair Irvin Khoza said.

“We respect his wish to pursue this new opportunity and wish him success as he takes on a new responsibility.”

Speaking on Thursday at his pre-match press conference ahead of the second leg of the Champions League qualifier against Namibian side African Stars at Orlando Stadium on Friday (8pm), Ouaddou said there was no bad blood between him and Ncikazi.

Allegations of a rift between the two came after Ncikazi missed the last few matches, but Ouaddou explained it was because the assistant coach was recovering from surgery.

“The club has issued a statement saying he had surgery and he is recovering. I wish him all the best and that’s all I can say,” Ouaddou said.

“You know we read many things about this. Everything is OK in our club, the environment is OK and people must not start problems.

“There was surgery and I wish him all the best. I read many things and we must not create problems.”

Ouaddou said preparations for the second leg, where the Buccaneers have a 1-0 advantage gained from Saturday’s first leg in neutral Gaborone, Botswana, have gone well and his team want to finish off the job and return to the group stages of the Champions League.

“We played a difficult game in Botswana under hard conditions and the players gave everything and they produced a positive result.

“At least we can say we have a second half at home where we can get through to the group stages. The most important thing was to focus on recovery of the players and we had two sessions to make tactical adjustments to what we saw in the last game.

“They are ready to come back to the Champions League and we are focused on winning this second half. We will do everything in terms of commitment and organisation to go through to the group stage for our fans.

“Last season, this was one of the targets that we did not reach and our fans deserve this competition and we are going to give everything to make them happy.”

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