Flight of the Dragon

Fantastic season well done on the cup and then the champions league especially meeting the old club in the Final, bet that felt special!

Superb finishing of the season. Congtats!

Finding it hard to decide to leave Suwon or stay on ... hence it's delaying the updates.

Any suggestions?

I would leave tbh, you have done everything in Asia.

Agree with Johno, step down and find a new job!

Continent!!

Despite a tough decision, I think it is the right one. Time for pastures new and as some have eluded a new continent ...

Day after leaving ... new job comes up!



Two days after leaving, job accepted. All aboard the pirate ship .... ahoy!

A quite successful club and the only club in South Africa to win the CAF Champions League. Was only a season ago that this club had won the league and not many of that squad has moved on. One thing is clear is that the squad is an ageing one and therefore needs to be looked at in terms of bringing youngsters through.



Despite my reputation in Asia, it means squat here in South Africa. Which is fair enough. I only signed a deal to conclude until the end of the current season. The reason for this was clear for me. I needed a job, but the demands of competing wit the top sides will be a difficult task. League form is dire and as I eluded to above the squad is fairly old. With no money I won't be able to adjust the squad. Add to that I feel that the expectations I am being asked to achieve might well be beyond us for this season. It allows me an escape route for another job but if I do achieve the impossible allows me room to negotiate a tidy deal.



League form has been poor, but cup runs seem to be a speciality. Lost one final but my first game in charge is a cup final against a top side in SuperSport. All to play for then in my first game.



Won the league a season back now languishing in 11th. Time to step up.

Came in like a wrecking ball ....



Best goal of the game apparently.

Not bad start to your Orlando Pirates career

Thats a decent job to jump in to and a decent start for sure!

Cheers lads, much appreciated.



13 years at the club and played bugger all and gets a testimonial. Unreal.

Honour we did ...

Great work in getting the Orlando Pirates! They are a very good side!

So a streak of wins has boosted us up the table, but we are at times struggling to score goals and not having the money to sign players is a ball ache.

Certainly closed up the table nicely, despite you saying your struggling to score goals the good news is your GD is around that of the other teams!

To be honest Dan, we concede quite early on a regular basis and have to make comebacks. So it is also a problem for us at the back.



Youth intake and little to write home about bar from the goalkeeper who seems to be the next big thing to come out of South African football



Potential is there ...

Held out and held onto 4th. The squad showed some character since I took over which is pleasing. But we are financially in a mess and really need some players to take us to the next level. We have managed to qualify for the Champions League also, so money will be coming in from that. I should stress it is no where near as bad as it was in South Korea but it's not glorious.

One year deal signed. Enjoying my time here.

Disappointed. We tried playing football and Bloom just got down and dirty and committed 22 fouls. Annoyed and disappointed.

Transfer business. Quite a lot went out, lot of bosman deals came in. Happy with the business done.



Pre-season silverware. Not a brilliant game but winning silverware and beating the Chiefs to do it is always worthwhile.

That keeper really could be something, good to see you settle for another year here!

Hopefully Dan, he does look like a prospect.



So we managed to boss the Champions League group. Lot of good revenue came in. Lot of good displays too.

Won the cup we couldn't do last year. Beat the side that has an annoying manager. Beat the side that is high flying. C'mon the Buccs!

Champions League time ....




At the end of the first leg of the final we managed to take a slim lead against a very strong Algerian side. Despite setting up to play an attacking brand of football, we almost played a counter attacking game. We seemingly sat back and took advantage on the counter.


The second leg played like this ...



Unbelievable scenes Jeff ....



5-5 on aggregate and we almost blew it. Went to penalties. WE kept our cool throughout and went to take the game. Unreal.



Handy money, all incoming money is good for the club. Hopefully at the end of the season I will get some cash to spend.



Making friends and making waves ...

Stole a cheeky win against South Korean rivals Seoul. Always nice to get a victory over them.

Was never meant to be, and never should it be.

So we headed for the 3rd place play offs and managed to upset a quite powerful San Lorenzo side. They had their chances to kill us off but we found the right times to score. When they pulled back the second goal I did think that was it, and we were going to get battering like a piece of cod. Yet we stood firm and saw them off. Nice little victory on the world stage.



Handy money which sees our season profit touch £5 million.

Another final and another trophy. Squad is now comfortable with the tactic I am using. SuperSport are a tough opposition and really exploited our tiredness at having to play so many games in such a short period of time. Hopefully we can re-group now and push hard for the league. We have a few games in hand and we again need to take advantage of them.



Nice to see we broke a new record.