Lekgwathi praises Pirates for signing captains

Orlando Pirates' recent capture of Stellenbosch captain Deano van Rooyen is a protraction of the club's culture of signing skippers in recent times.

Defenders Tapelo Xoki and Nkosinathi Sibisi captained AmaZulu and Golden Arrows respectively before simultaneously joining Pirates in July 2022. The pair have also donned the captain's armband at the Buccaneers in the past two seasons. Another player who joined Pirates with a captaincy history is Makhehleni Makhaula, arriving in January last year from AmaZulu, where he was the skipper. 

Pirates' most successful skipper Lucky Lekgwathi, who led the side to back-to-back treble between 2010 and 2013, has lauded the club's growing penchant for building the club around players with leadership qualities. 

“It's a good norm to sign captains. I salute Pirates for doing this... it's a good culture. It's working for us [as Pirates] because we've won four cups in two years now and players like Xoki and Sibisi have played a big role in that success,'' Lekgwathi told Sowetan this week.

“It's very important to have leaders in that dressing room. I saw it with us when we won the double treble... people were busy praising me as the captain but we had many leaders who were very instrumental in our dressing room and helped us to achieve that back-to-back treble.”

Lekgwathi reflected on how having leaders like Benni McCarthy, Moeneeb Josephs and Siyabonga Sangweni alleviated responsibility on him when they clinched that back-to-back hat-trick of cups.

“We had Benni, a natural leader, Moeneeb, a born leader again, Sangweni, another fantastic leader. In every department, we had a leader and I think it helped us because you can't lead alone. When a team is full of youngsters, it becomes difficult for you as the captain to control them, so you need more captains,'' Lekgwathi said.

After beating SuperSport United 3-1 to secure their berth in the MTN8 semifinals, where they'll meet Cape Town City over two legs on August 27 (away) and 31 (home), in what was their opening game of the 2024/25 campaign nearly a fortnight ago, the Buccaneers will be eager to maintain their momentum when they take on Disciples of Madagascar away on Sunday (1pm SA time). 

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