The Orlando Pirates squad will likely be acutely aware of the club’s poor form in cup finals as they step onto the park against Bloemfontein Celtic in the MTN8 final on Saturday evening at the Moses Mabhida Stadium.
Since 2013, the club has lost in two Caf finals (the Champions League and the Confederation Cup), two Nedbank Cup finals, two Telkom Knockout finals, and two top-eight finals.
The only exception was back in 2014, when they lifted the Nedbank Cup trophy.
“I think it has to be a motivation for us, having seen that after six years the team has not won a trophy, and that has to be a motivation,” Hlatshwayo said in the pre-match press conference.
“Looking at how we have performed throughout the tournament, [we have to] make sure that we break that cycle.
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“And make sure that each and every player who has not won a cup with Orlando Pirates, writes their history in the club’s books,” the Bafana Bafana central defender added.
Of the current squad of Bucs players, only two men – Happy Jele and Ntsikelelo Nyauza - were around when Pirates beat Bidvest Wits in the 2014 Nedbank Cup final.
Hlatshwayo did win the MTN8 tournament during his time with Bidvest Wits, when they beat Mamelodi Sundowns 3-0 in the 2016 final.
Some of Hlatshwayo’s other former Wits team-mates, now with him at Pirates, such as Gabadinho Mhango and Vincent Pule, also tasted trophy success with the Clever Boys, and that experience may come in handy on Saturday.
“Personally I will draw inspiration from the very same tournament, when we played Sundowns,” the former Ajax Cape Town player said.
“And the leadership around the team, we have a lot of leaders. [I will] make sure that the experience I have acquired, is [fed] to the players. They are capable of doing it, we can see how they performed throughout the tournament.
“Having played difficult teams leading to the final, yes for sure without a doubt probably people will say we are favourites,” he continued.
“But I think we should not fear Celtic, but respect them, because they have been in a final already this year, they are not a small team and we must give them that respect.”
Pirates beat Cape Town City (1-0) and Kaizer Chiefs (5-0 over two legs) to book their spot in the final. Celtic surprised Sundowns in the opening round (1-0) and then saw off SuperSport United 2-1 on aggregate over the two-legged semi-final.
