Former Orlando Pirates assistant coach Benson Mhlongo says it could be a blessing in disguise for caretaker coach Fadlu Davids to play behind closed doors.
Davids will be in charge of the Buccaneers for the MTN8 semi-final clash with Soweto rivals Kaizer Chiefs on Sunday, as Josef Zinnbauer is in Germany to attend to a family emergency.
Mhlongo believes an empty FNB Stadium could take some pressure off of Davids when he leads Pirates in the second leg of the semifinal.
"It could be a blessing in disguise to give a coach time to settle," Mhlongo told KickOff.
"Because if you have supporters, they are very rude sometimes, especially Orlando where when they feel you are not scoring, they will put you under pressure. And the word support I think we must define it what is to support.
"If a person is not given a chance you will never know the answer. It's time that we stop doing the same mistake, we always judge people. That's why we don't have people. Pitso went to Egypt because we judged him too much, he is tired.
"We are losing people who must help us improve the game. We go and get people that we don't know and hope that they'll do well and then when they don't do well, we make excuses. At home we don't give them a chance.
"To play football someone must give you your first game professionally. To become a coach someone must give you that first job as a coach. They gave him at Maritzburg he did well. It's just that Maritzburg nearly went to relegation. For me it doesn't matter how good you are, if you are not given a chance you are good a nothing."
- TEAMtalk media