Moloi to Ouaddou: stop calling our flair ‘showboating’
Teboho Moloí has gone at the word itself. After Orlando Pirates coach Abdeslam Ouaddou threatened to walk if his players keep doing tricks he branded “showboating,” the former Buccaneers star and coach drew a line: this is South African football, not a circus act.
“Can we please be Africans, can we be South Africans, can we please have an identity and be ourselves,” Moloi said in an interview with Radio 2000.
His point is not that players should dance for the crowd and lose the ball. It is that coaches should weaponise the skill, not shame it.
“What the coaches need to do is to encourage our players to use their skills positively because times have changed,” he said.
“In our days, I used to do a ‘show me your number’ for entertainment. But now look at Rele. He’s improved it. He still does it but he goes forward and scores.”
That “Rele” is Relebohile Mofokeng — the player with the same flair Ouaddou is trying to police at Pirates, now scoring in Belgium and in the Europa League.
Moloi says the insult is imported. “We never used to have the word showboating in SA,” he argued.
“It came from a man we respected, Glen Hoddle, after the likes of Sailor Tshabalala showed Tottenham flames.
“We can’t call our style showboating. During segregation we used football as entertainment. This is our skill and flair.”
Ouaddou wants goals, not extras. Moloi’s answer: the extras, used right, are the goals.
