Orlando Pirates’ most successful captain in the PSL era, Lucky Lekgwathi has given a piece of captaincy advice to Innocent Maela, the current skipper of the Buccaneers.
‘Phinda Mzala’ led Pirates to numerous trophies, especially towards the end of his career at the club. He made history when he hoisted double treble with the Sea Robbers between 2010 and 2012.
The 46-year-old says Maela must allow all his teammates to take charge, rather than him being the only voice on the field.
“Not only you are a leader, but other players are also leaders too,” Lekgwathi told ThisIsFootball.Africa.
“Obviously, the final say is gonna come from someone who wears the armband, which is Maela.
“As a leader, you must always tell the players that everyone is a captain, that they have the right to lead and to talk.
“Another thing is you cannot have favourites. In other words when certain players do something wrong and you speak to them about it, you also cannot ignore it when others do the same thing. You need to address these things fairly with everyone”
Lekgwathi was fortunate enough to share the dressing room with Bafana Bafana’s all-time top goal-scorer Benni McCarthy. It could have been difficult to handle the man who knew it all, having won the UEFA Champions League and played in La Liga and Premier League. Lekgwathi has revealed how he used to deal with him.
“If Benni did something that was questionable, I would tell him, but not in the way I would tell a youngster. Because you have to respect the senior players,” Lekgwathi added.
“Even the younger ones will understand that you speak to them in that way because they’re not the same age as the older more experienced ones.
“But you must treat players the same.”
Maela has already won his first trophy with the Soweto giants after they won MTN8, overpowering AmaZulu in the final.
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