COMMENT
Abdeslam Ouaddou has discovered something about South African football that cannot be found in a coaching manual: when you win, you earn the right to tell everyone what winning should look like.
The Orlando Pirates coach has found himself at the centre of another familiar South African football debate after declaring that he would rather pack his bags than accept his players showboating.
His position is hardly revolutionary.
He wants efficiency. He wants goals. He wants players to make the right decisions rather than indulge themselves once they have established control.
Ouaddou has drawn a line between skill and entertainment, arguing that there is a difference between using ability to move the ball forward and performing tricks simply to entertain.
The problem for Ouaddou is not necessarily his argument.
It is that South African football has never been particularly interested in separating flair from identity. And this is where winning becomes important.
Stuart Baxter once found himself in a position many coaches would envy. After Kaizer Chiefs had secured the league title, his players began performing tricks and entertaining the crowd.
Baxter admitted he accepted the showboating because they had already won the league. That little admission says more about football than any coaching philosophy could. When the medals are already in the cabinet, suddenly the coach has more freedom to indulge the spectacle.
Pitso Mosimane has taken a harder line. After Mamelodi Sundowns beat Orlando Pirates 6-0 in 2017, he spoke against unnecessary showboating and argued that opponents deserved respect. But Mosimane could make that argument from the comfort of a coach whose Sundowns side was collecting trophies.
Manqoba Mngqithi made a similar argument years later, saying he would substitute players who showboated and insisting that what excited him was seeing the ball hit the net.
Then there was Rulani Mokwena, whose Sundowns teams placed enormous emphasis on possession, control and tactical detail while dominating the Betway Premiership. Miguel Cardoso has taken his own route, repeatedly demanding that emotion be channelled into the technical and tactical side of the game rather than becoming a substitute for football itself.
The common denominator?
They had won. And that is the conversation Ouaddou has now entered.
League winners are privileged to answer questions about how football should be played. They can be uncompromising. They can be arrogant. They can tell supporters that their way is the right way.
The trophy gives them that authority. That is Ouaddou’s challenge.
He is asking South Africa to accept his definition of professionalism while still building his own authority at Pirates.
That authority will ultimately not come from how strongly he speaks about showboating. It will come from the results.
If Pirates win the Betway Premiership, make a serious run in Africa and continue filling the trophy cabinet, Ouaddou can tell his players exactly when to juggle, when to dribble, when to entertain and when to simply put the ball in the net.
Nobody will care quite as much. Because that is the privilege of winning.
In South African football, success does not just give you trophies. It gives you the loudest voice in the argument about how those trophies should be won.
And perhaps that is the lesson Ouaddou is finally learning.