Jwaneng Galaxy head coach Morena Ramoreboli has addressed the heated touchline incident between himself and Orlando Pirates assistant coach Mandla Ncikazi during the first leg of their CAF Champions League second preliminary round clash.
The Buccaneers collected an important 2-0 first-leg win away from home and have one foot in the CAFCL group stages.
There was an incident during the first leg where the former Bafana Bafana COSAFA squad coach came to blows with Pirates assistant Ncikazi, but Ramoreboli insisted it’s part of the game and he has huge respect for “his brother”.
“I have huge respect for coach Mandla, he is my brother, I respect him so much,” he replied when asked by iDiski Times about the heated incident.
“I think he acted maybe out of the situation that I was talking to the referee about – the incident when our goalkeeper was pushed or something, I can’t remember exactly.
“But as professionals, those type of situation will happen many of times and I don’t think we need to be personal about those type of things.
“I respect him so much. Maybe when the time his right he will explain to me how it happened and why.
“If you have seen the situation well, I was talking to the referee and he came because he wanted to say something and between me and him obviously emotions were high.
“But the because of the respect I have for him I understood, here it’s not a fight that is personal, it’s a brother that wants to push me so that maybe I get a yellow card or get frustrated.
“Those are tactics in football. Sometimes you can see, ‘no, we have done everything in the field of play, but now we want to score, what do we do. now let’s try to disturb the one that is trying to control the ship from not sinking’.
“And that’s the period where he got, and he wanted to say ‘let me push him, maybe he gets angry’ and it was a very clever move. If it’s an assistant coach, he can risk getting a red card but a head coach can’t risk getting a red card.
“I think how we handled it, it was very professional, it was in the heat of the moment. After that life goes on, we’re not enemies.”
