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Pitso, Micho differ on footballer of the season award

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Milutin Sredojevic (Gallo Images)
Milutin Sredojevic (Gallo Images)

Johannesburg - While Mamelodi Sundowns coach Pitso Mosimane has punted his striker Percy Tau for the footballer of the season award, his Orlando Pirates counterpart, Milutin “Micho” Sredojevic, believes his midfielder Musa Nyatama also deserves the accolade.

Nyatama, who this week walked away with the player of the month award for March, has already won six man-of-the-match awards to Tau’s 10 goals and five man-of-the-match awards.

Sredojevic thinks Nyatama’s statistics should rival Tau’s impressive returns.

Last week, Mosimane reiterated his stance on Tau, saying he had no rivals in the award category.

“For me, you can’t compare Percy Tau with anybody. Give it to him. Who do you want to compare him to? No, let’s be honest, who do you want to compare him to? Okay, you can have nominees, which is good, but give it to Percy,” said Mosimane.

However, Micho has thrown a spanner in the works, arguing that Nyatama should not be overlooked.

After scooping the coach of the month award for March, Sredojevic said he respected Mosimane’s opinion on his preferred candidate for the gong.

“I have the highest degree of respect for my colleague Pitso, with whom I have a history of 15 years,” Sredojevic said.

“He is now competing with the best on the continent, leading the table here and is a firm favourite to win the league. He has his own opinion.

“I am happy that we have Musa, who has won the man-of-the-match award six times. We want our team to be the best of the season.”

When Micho joined Pirates at the beginning of this season, the team had finished at a disappointing 11th position.

They are now title contenders, but the Serb is not satisfied.

Sredojevic said he was able to steer his troops to success because of the support of the management team.

“I am full of pride with the work we are doing with the technical team and the players.”

He said the last piece of the puzzle were the supporters, who had rallied behind the team and pushed them to do better than last season.

“It is like the philosophy of life the way Orlando Pirates supporters love the team. It is what we are feeling on this side,” he said, referring to the internal part of the team.

The 48-year-old said he would do whatever it took to put smiles on the Happy People’s faces.

“One of the biggest powers given to human beings is the power to make people happy. We are ready to cross all the limits to make them happy.”

He said they were not getting carried away by their current success and would keep their feet on the ground.

“We are still not satisfied; we are hungry; we are not happy; we want to focus on our next game against SuperSport.”

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