Johannesburg - Irvin Khoza, the Orlando Pirates chairman, would be delighted to have Steven Pienaar don the famous black and white jersey next season.
”Steven has previously expressed a long time desire to come to Pirates and if he’s available it will be a pleasure to talk to him,” Khoza said on Monday.
Pienaar, the former Bafana Bafana star and captain, is out of contract at English Premier League club Everton and at the weekend spoke openly about his desire to bring what has been a pretty successful career to an end here at home.
”I would love to finish my career in South Africa, but I haven’t received any offers,” said in an interview with the Sunday Independent.Khoza believes that Pirates would offer Pienaar – who is renowned in this country more for his exploits with Bafana than at club level where he briefly played for Ajax Cape Town – an opportunity similar to the one the Buccaneers provided Benni McCarthy.
”He needs a platform like Pirates, just like Benni did when he won things with us locally after a long time in Europe,” Khoza said.
Pienaar, a confessed Pirates fan in his younger years, has said he’d love to capture the domestic championship before calling it quits.”A PSL league medal would be nice to add to my cabinet,” he said in that interview with the Independent.
Meanwhile Khoza has confirmed the club has acquired the services of Ajax Cape Town duo Abbubaker Mobara and Riyaad Norodien.”We’ve agreed terms with Mobara and Norodien,” confirmed a visibly delighted Khoza whose team only recently appointed former Ajax coach Muhsin Ertugral.
”We’ve also signed (Bernard) Morrison of (Democratic Republic of Congo) Vita Club,” he added.
While they reached the CAF Confederation Cup final last year, the recently completed 2015/16 Absa Premiership season will probably rate as an episode in the club’s illustrious history best forgotten.
Besides not winning anything under coach Eric Tinkler, who has since left to join John Comitis’ new Cape Town club, Pirates also nearly missed out on a top eight finish for the first time in the PSL era.
They secured the spot (seventh) on the last day of the season.In Mobara, Pirates have acquired a solid central defender who is also very versatile as he can play just about everywhere on the field.
He also has vast international experience having represented South Africa at Under-20 level and is currently at the Cosafa Cup in Namibia while he is likely to play a major role for the Under-23s at the Olympics.
Mobara’s signing will inject some youthful exuberance to a somewhat ageing defence that has since lost a stalwart in Siyabonga Sangweni who has retired. And with Happy Jele and Rooi Mahamutsa having spent most of the past season injured, Mobara’s arrival will no doubt be a welcome.
Mobara will reconnect with the coach who gave him his professional debut in Ertugral. While the two initially didn’t seem to get along with the coach declaring the player was not in his plans, in time the lad from Mitchells Plain got game time under the fiery Turkish coach who used him as an attack-minded player. Under Roger de Sa he played both in central midfield and later in central defence where he has been excelling.
Norodien is also a flexible player whom Ertugral previously described as “one of the best talents in the country”.Intriguingly Morrison, the star attacker who was instrumental in Vita’s elimination of Mamelodi Sundowns from the CAF Champions League earlier in the year, is a similar player to Norodien.
Both are fast, wide players who like to cut in and take powerful shots at goal.The Ghanaian created both goals for Vita against Sundowns when the Congolese beat the Brazilians on the away goal rule following an aggregate 2-2 draw.While excited about the new signings, Khoza hinted the club will be making an announcement of a release players in a scale not too dissimilar to the one conducted by their rivals Kaizer Chiefs.
”There’s going to be a lot of surprises,” he said, adding that he will only speak about this upon the official unveiling of Ertugral.Most of The Ghost will no doubt hope Pienaar is also at the unveiling.
The Star