Former Orlando Pirates striker Thulasizwe "Juju-Man" Mbuyane (Picture: Lefty Shivambu/Gallo Images)
Former Orlando Pirates striker Thulasizwe Mbuyane has revealed that the club’s administrative manager Floyd Mbele and director Stanley “Screamer” Tshabalala did not want him to get game time at the club.
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Mbuyane, who played for Pirates between 2008 until 2014, was among crowd favourites at the Buccaneers.
“Juju-man”, as Mbuyane was affectionately known in the football circles, revealed during an interview with TK that Roger de Sa told him that Mbele and Tshabalala did not want him to play him at Pirates.
“He (De Sa) told me that ‘Screamer doesn’t want me to play you’. He said ‘I want to play you, this game is yours, but he doesn’t want me to play you’,” said Mbuyane on Off the Pitch with TK.
“There is a game we played in Mbombela wearing the red kit against SuperSport United. I got in the second half and changed the game. I created a goal for Lennox Bacela with a cross and he equalised. We went to penalties and won the match to reach the final. After the game Floyd came to me and said, ‘this is the Juju-man I know’. I then told him ‘but you and Bra Stan don’t want me to play, but look, we are going to the final now’.”
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Mbuyane added that he ended up not making the squad for the final against the now defunct Platinum Stars after telling Mbele what De Sa told him, and that was despite the fact that he was the one who helped the team go into the final.
“I did not even play the final against Platinum by telling him that they don’t want me to play because Roger was telling me that he wants to put me in, but they don’t want me to play.”
Mbuyane also touched on the issue of money at Pirates, and he says people have a wrong perspective of assuming that a player has money when they play for the Sea Robbers.
”People think when you play for Pirates you have a lot of money, and the reality of the matter is that you have a uniform (team’s merchandise), not money.”
Mbuyane also played for Free State Stars, Mpumalanga Black Aces and Royal Eagles during his career that started with Garankuwa United in 2004.