Orlando Pirates striker Tshegofatso Mabasa has opened up about working with new head coach Abdeslam Ouaddou on the back of the Buccaneers' pre-season and the first few weeks.
Ouaddou was unveiled in June as the man set to fill the heavy shoes of former coach Jose Riveiro, who lifted five titles with Pirates during his three seasons.
Ouaddou started working with the side in the days leading up to their pre-season camp in Spain and oversaw the Buccaneers' four pre-season matches.
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Two of those encounters ended in draws, while the other two ended in defeat and a victory.
Mabasa, whom Riveiro trusted to lead the attack for the Soweto giants during the last two years of his three-year stay, is warming up to the new man at the helm.
"I think the biggest thing about coach [Ouaddou] is that he’s a very demanding coach, but he loves his players at the same time," Mabasa told journalists at the media screening of SuperSportTV's Giants Docu-series.
"He is also an encourager, quite similar to Coach Jose. There’s not a lot that Coach Ouaddou is trying to change. It’s only how we defended our set pieces and how we dealt with transitions.
"He’s just trying to improve the areas that we lacked last season, and we feel it’s mostly from set pieces. We lost the [CAF] Champions League because of set pieces; we conceded three goals against Pyramids FC from set pieces, and we were out of the tournament.
"It’s very funny how we lost the Champions League on set pieces, yet in the country, we were the best in terms of defending set pieces. So, coach Ouaddou is just trying to improve on areas we lacked last season."
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Ouaddou will have his first chance to put his plans to action in a competitive match when the Sea Robbers kick-start the defence of their MTN8 title with a quarter-final clash against Polokwane City.
The match will be played at Orlando Stadium on Saturday.
Kick-off is at 15:00.
