Orlando Pirates’ Tshepang Moremi flourishing after Abdeslam Ouaddou’s tactical rethink

Orlando Pirates coach Abdeslam Ouaddou says Tshepang Moremi’s outstanding start to the season is the result of allowing the Bafana Bafana winger to make full use of his natural strengths.

Moremi scored in each of his first two appearances before missing three matches in the opening five games of the campaign. Since returning, however, he has continued to make a decisive contribution.

The product of the Remember Elite Sports Academy has scored seven goals and provided one assist in 11 matches in all competitions, meaning he has played a direct part in eight goals.

Ouaddou has developed a specific role for Moremi, particularly involving his pace, but is unwilling to reveal the details of the plan.

“I cannot tell you how we use his speed and where we use it because I’m going to give you the plan but he’s using his quality in a wonderful way that helps the team, that helps his teammates,” Ouaddou said.

The coach has also stressed to Moremi that he should not try to become another player, using Orlando Pirates team-mate Relebohile Mofokeng and a police officer as comparisons.

“Again, I told him as long as he decides if he wants to become Mofokeng, he can’t be Mofokeng, he has to stay Moremi and Mofokeng cannot be Moremi. If he wants to be a police, he will not be a police but a police cannot be Moremi, you understand?

“He understands really where I want to bring him, how I want to play him and it’s working for him. I’m happy, the most important thing for me it’s when I see Moremi happy at the end of the game with a smile.

“He’s able to score, he’s able to feed his teammates, he’s not selfish, so he’s going to go far like that.”

Ouaddou believes Moremi’s progress also highlights the danger of automatically asking wingers to operate as inverted players, a role popularised by leading sides such as Manchester City and Barcelona.

Although the Orlando Pirates manager values inverted wingers, he says Moremi is better suited to remaining a traditional wide player rather than being converted into a number 10.

“I know that in modern football there are a lot of people that are watching big teams, Manchester City. Watching Barcelona and everybody wants to have inverted players but sometimes even though I want to have inverted players, the quality of the players is to be simple and to have a winger,” he added.

“He’s not a 10 and I cannot convert him into a 10. I’ve always said to Moremi that you have a special quality, you are gifted, God gave you a special, special, quality, this is his speed.

“For me, I told him, if when I was a player I wanted to have your speed, maybe I could work until the end of the world.

“I cannot have your speed, I will walk a little bit and you have to use this speed with efficiency and when you are going to understand that, that you have to use your quality, you are going to be efficient, so that’s what we did.”