Khoza blast over ‘Pirates is just a name’ jibe was aimed at his own staff, not rival player

Orlando Pirates Director of Football Mpumi Khoza’s much-discussed tirade over the claim that “Pirates is just a name” was in fact a pointed warning to the club’s own technical staff rather than an attack on Durban City midfielder Siphamandla Ncanana.

The context of the outburst dates back to the closing stages of last season, when Orlando Pirates were held to a 0-0 draw by Durban City at the Orlando Amstel Arena in the Soweto club’s penultimate league fixture of the campaign.

In a post-match interview on SuperSport TV after that stalemate, Ncanana provoked a stir across South African football with his assessment of the result.

“Pirates is just a name… we are all the same,” he said, a comment that immediately sparked debate among supporters and pundits.

Khoza uses Ncanana quote as example in internal meeting

The fallout from those remarks has now been revisited in the fourth episode of the behind-the-scenes series Bucs Camp: We Fight Till The End, in which Khoza addresses a management gathering and makes clear how deeply the phrase had affected him.

For weeks there had been uncertainty among fans over whether Khoza’s anger was directed squarely at Ncanana or whether the Durban City player’s words were being used as a broader illustration of shortcomings within Pirates’ own set-up.

Speaking candidly in the meeting, Khoza criticised the way Pirates were failing to turn their pressure into clear chances and results, and suggested this was what had opened the door for opponents to speak so dismissively.

“We create a lot of chances, we create a lot of volume, but when we don’t have any big chances. It’s… for me it’s nonsensical. It’s actually laughable. Like, are you guys comfortable going through the same things every day and saying, ‘Okay, yeah, this is what we did… This is what we did…’?” said Khoza.

He went on to warn that persistent failings were inviting outside criticism and undermining the stature of the club.

“But we talk about these things, but nothing happens. Then we sit here and when we come to this board, we’re going to speculate the same thing. And then we’re going to make people like Durban City come and say words like, ‘Pirates is just a name’.

“We do that. We give people the thinking that they can disrespect this badge and say, ‘Pirates is just a name’. That statement doesn’t make me sleep. For someone to have the guts to say that…” he added.

Frustration aimed at Pirates’ inability to turn dominance into wins

Khoza’s comments, aired in the documentary, underline that his frustration was fundamentally with Orlando Pirates’ technical team and their inability to translate superiority into decisive victories, rather than a personal attack on Ncanana himself.

By highlighting the “Pirates is just a name” line, Khoza framed the midfielder’s television soundbite as a symptom of a wider problem – namely that repeated failures in the final third had emboldened opponents to challenge the club’s status.

The draw against Durban City, coming so close to the end of the season and at the Orlando Amstel Arena, was portrayed in the meeting as a prime example of Pirates’ wastefulness: a match in which they enjoyed plenty of attacking volume but failed to produce what Khoza termed “big chances”.

His insistence that the statement kept him awake at night underscored how seriously he viewed both the comment and the performances that allowed it to gain traction.

The episode also shed light on the internal pressure being placed on the coaching department ahead of the new campaign, with Khoza effectively demanding a shift from sterile domination to clinical edge in order to protect what he repeatedly referred to as “this badge”.

While Ncanana’s original words on SuperSport TV ignited the immediate controversy, the latest revelations from Bucs Camp: We Fight Till The End suggest that, inside Orlando Pirates, they have become a rallying point for a wider introspection about standards, mentality and the club’s on-field identity.