I play the South African way…
Masebe Qina: Coach, how have you found competing in the Motsepe Foundation Championship?
Pogiso Makhoye:
It’s been good, and I think for us it’s just about competing and protecting our status in the league. The expectation isn’t to win the league. We’ve been doing well and getting the results and that has somewhat put alittle bit of pressure on us because no one expected us to be where we are right now. It’s been through the hard work of the boys and their dedication that we are where we are right now. But that hasn’t changed our objective and that is to get as many points as possible to save our status, without talking about winning the league.
MQ: Has everything happened the way you expected?
PM:
We were a little surprised as well because of the start we had after we got 12 points in the first four matches of the season. That helped the boys to settle quickly and they started believing that they can compete in this league. The only challenge we have is injuries and our medical department has been busy with that. For the past few games, we’ve had alot of injuries and that’s why we had to change the team as some of the players were not available. The recent FIFA break helped us with some of those players recovering and we are confident that the team will start playing well again. Being able to play at Olympia Park will also help to bring back confidence to the boys as they will get to be watched by people who didn’t have aprofessional team in the North West for some time. Our supporters can now watch games at home because in the beginning, we were playing home games away from home as Giant Stadium is ahome for JDR Stars. By being able to play at home, we’ll reduce on travelling and we’ll experience the advantage of playing at home, unlike when we had to travel to Pretoriafor home games. The stadium (Olympia) was undergoing renovations, but it has since been completed.
MQ: What’s the support been like from management?
PM:
The College is very supportive to the team, even though we don’t have a sponsor. We are looking for sponsors and that’s why it is important for the team to do well in the league to attract sponsorships. Normally, sponsors want to be associated with teams that are winning. So, one of the reasons the team has been performing well is also to try and get sponsorships. We will try to finish in the top five in the league and maybe agood Samaritan will come and assist the team. Having said that, Orbit as the College is doing everything to support the team, but that is not enough.
MQ: Talk to us about how you’ve managed to get the team to produce results.
PM:
I think we kept 90% of the players that played in the national play-offs and those are the players that were hungry and wanted to play at ahigher level. These are the players that wanted to make aname for themselves. The understanding between the players and coach has been great because we’ve been together for the past five years and therefore, we know one another in and out. They know what I want and I know what they want. They know the philosophy of the team and the playing style, and they enjoy the playing style of the team. I think these are some of the reasons the team has been doing well.
MQ: What’s your philosophy? PM:
I play the South African way of playing football. If you remember how the Doctor Khumalos of this world used to play, that’s my way of playing football. We play in a similar way that the BafanaBafana Class of 1996 played. That group
How many teams would be sitting at the top of the standings after 13 games in their first season in a league as physically draining as the Motsepe Foundation Championship? Having won promotion via the ABC Motsepe League play-offs at the beginning of this campaign, Orbit College FC are proving to be no pushovers, and at this rate, look set to even go all the way in the race for honours and a place at the top table of South African football next season. Yet, according to their ever-modest coach, Pogiso Makhoye, baby steps will do. It is a process, says the man who honed the skills of Monnapule Saleng before unleashing him to the big time. That said, Mswenko Boys, as Orbit is affectionately known, are the newfound pride of the North West, a region starved of professional football since Platinum Stars vanished into thin (Cape) Umoya. In this interview with Soccer Laduma’s Masebe Qina, Makhoye delves more into the team’s objectives. didn’t play with too many physical players who used power, but they played with players who put the ball on the ground, and that’s our way of playing. I prefer creating spaces, not to play alot of long balls, and I like to allow players to express themselves without being afraid of making mistakes. We are not afraid to do so, and we like to have fun, and that’s what I always want from my players. We play carpet football, which many people refer to as tiki-taka, but for us it isn’t that but the Orbit way of playing football – that’s how we like to call it. We are trying to change the perception, to say no matter what we do, let’s play our way so that even if we win, we win playing our own brand of football. Our brand of football is getting us the supporters in the stadium as they like how we play.
MQ: How many of your players go to the College?
PM:
I think about 50% of our players are going to the College and they are enrolled for the different courses. Some are doing engineering studies and some are doing hospitality and other different courses. We are trying to encourage them to combine football and education.
MQ: What will you do to guard against complacency?
PM:
You need to play afatherfigure role to them. For the past five years, we’ve been
trying to prepare them for trials, but teams did not sign them. I always tell them that if they don’t remain humble, good things will go away from them. I always encourage them not to take lightly what football is giving them. I encourage them to always love what they do. Humbleness is what has brought us to where we are today and that’s why I always encourage them to remain humble. We are here to build a legacy for ourselves, but I don’t want any one of them to do anything with arrogance but with humbleness.
MQ: What does it mean for your charges to see the club’s former star, Monnapule Saleng, playing for Orlando Pirates and Bafana Bafana? PM:
He has made them to believe that they are also special because he played with them. If he can go and make it at abig club like that and be one of the best players in South Africa, it means that there is talent here and something that is making Orbit to be special. It means that there are more players where he comes from who can also perform well and be on his level. For them, it is amotivation that if we can work together, we can achieve something. He always comes to motivate them and I’m happy for that. He talks to them to give them that belief that with hard work, everything is possible in life. He always reminds them that if you want to achieve something in life, put your focus into it and work hard for it and stay humble, and then you will see the results. He is ahumble boy himself and therefore, he is the right person to give them advice. He started where they are in order to be where he is today and those are the things he advises them about. The good thing about them is that they are also professional footballers now.
MQ: What would it mean for you to gain promotion to the top tier?
PM: I really don’t know and I don’t want to talk about that for now. I’m thinking about retaining the status right now. We’ll see about that at the end of the season, and maybe I can talk about that when I see it happening. Right now, I don’t want to be too ambitious. The target is to retain the status, and if we do that, we’ll be happy. We are not playing to be number one or get promotion, no, no, no. We don’t want to put pressure on the players, we want the players to enjoy pl aying football. Let them make mistakes, they are allowed to doso.Wea re new kids in this league and we are going to have good and bad results.
MQ: Are you feeling the pressure of being at the top though?
PM:
We are not under pressure because we’ve set ourselves atarget and the target is to ensure that we get 30-35 points to retain the status. So far, we need around nine points to ensure that the team is safe. We try to make sure that we don’t focus too much on the mediabecause the mediacan put you under alot of pressure, especially if you are at the top. But for us, it is not about being at the top, it’s about achieving the targets that we’ve set for ourselves. Being number one can be because of anumber of things, like other teams not doing well, and that’s why we prefer to focus on us and not the other teams and their position on the log. We don’t have aset time on where we’d like to be in five years’ time and those kinds of targets, for us it’s all about having aprofessional team in the North West, whether in the elite division or second tier. We wanted to create opportunities for these young players to play professional football. Being in this league will give them exposure to be seen by bigger clubs and we are happy with that. We are pleased with the support that we are getting from the people of the province. Just to give you an example, in one of our recent games (against BarokaFC on 12 November), we were surprised with the turnout because it was the Soweto Derby weekend and we didn’t expect alot of people. The support we got on the day was overwhelming and it was proof to us that people in this areahave been hungry for professional football.
MQ: What was it like attending the CAF A coaching course?
PM:
I felt very grateful about being part of the course. It gave me an opportunity to learn more about the game and from other coaches. Without adoubt, it is courses like this that we need to improve South African football. It will add to the development of football in the country, and I was happy to be part of it as my way of serving the nation. I’m looking forward to going back to the grind to prove myself after this course.
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MQ: Been an absolute pleasure talking to you, coach.
PM: Thank you very much.