Pirates launch ‘Operation X’

It might sound more like an intriguing spy story, but Orlando Pirates’ launch of what has been termed “Operation X” is instead the concerted introduction of a development programme aimed at restoring the club’s top spot in South African football that has been usurped by Mamelodi Sundowns.

“It is a calculated plan to not only lift our own level of play and experience,” says Pirates head of development, Augusto Palacios (above), “but to help lift the standard generally in South Africa by inserting a degree of uniform professionalism that will enable the country to measure up against the leading football nations in the world”.

And effectively launching the programme, the brainchild of the club’s Nkosana Khoza, was the recent 12-day trip to Brazil of 19 of Pirates’ most promising Under-20 players and 14 officials from all facets of the club’s administration.

“There is no place in the world where soccer is taken more seriously than in Brazil,” said Palacios, “and apart from our youngsters playing five practice games against the junior sides of five of the top Brazilian clubs – winning three times – the objective was to observe the technical advancements and also how a professional club is run in every facet on and off the field”.

The ambitious project has cost Irvin Khoza’s Buccaneers in excess of R1.2 million and Palacios says it is only the beginning of “Operation X” – “with full-scale development from the most junior levels how we believe the Buccaneers’ flag will be flying higher again.”