Former Orlando Pirates head coach Ruud Krol believes he should be afforded the credit for the second treble-winning season after his departure.
After winning the treble in his third season at the club, Krol left Pirates upon the expiry of his contract and was replaced by Brazilian coach Julio Leal for the 2011/12 campaign.
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The Buccanneers went on to lift the MTN8 and Telkom Knockout before he was controversially sacked and interim coach Augusto Palacios secured the league title on the final day, ousting Gordon Igesund's Moroka Swallows.
But Krol feels the success in that season was down to the long-term project he developed at the club, which he feels was broken apart by the club's hierarchy.
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"A lot [of credit must be given to me], I think the work that I did the three years before," Krol tells snl24.com/kickoff.
"I always told them [the board] if they want to build a team for the championship, that is possible but it needs time. Only the second year, of course, was the year of the [2010] World Cup, so it was strange.
"We missed a lot of players for the national teams and we still needed to continue to train and sometimes play [matches] without them.
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"That was really an indifferent year for us but we were always playing our style of football, attacking football. I tried to use as many youngsters as possible in the team that I thought had the talent to become champions.
"In the last year we reached every final but we only won three finals. We did a good job I think and that continued with the Brazilian coach a little bit [for the second treble].
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"But it was the work from the previous three years [that helped Leal]. But as the years went on without the same philosophy anymore, then it went slowly down."
The Buccaneers have only won the 2014 Nedbank Cup since that double-treble-winning era, while employing eight different permanent managers over the past nine years.
