Pirates taking their cue from last Ke Yona Cup
Orlando Pirates coach Jose Riveiro (below) is banking on last season’s Nedbank Cup experience to overcome minnows Crystal Lake FC when they meet in this season’s edition of the competition in the round-of-32 at the Mbombela Stadium on Saturday.
Pirates were tested when three of their opening fixtures of the Ke Yona Cup were against teams in the lower division, starting with Cape Town All Stars, Venda Football Academy, and Dondol Stars on their way to winning the trophy.
The Buccaneers now face Crystal Lake, a Safa regional league side from Mpumalanga.
Riveiro knows very well that it won’t be a walk in the park for his charges against the third-tier side and he says they will be going out with guns blazing to try and win the match.
“We want to replicate a good performance in the same competition just one year ago, we need to start from the beginning. And at the beginning of this round, it is an unknown team for us. Playing a lower-league team may look like it’s going to be easy for us, but it is not.
“It is an important day for Crystal Lake. They have an opportunity to face Pirates,” said the Bucs coach during a press-conference this week.
“For us, we have experience facing lower league teams last season. We know how difficult it was. But at the end of the day, it is a football match. We are going with the intention of showing maximum respect to our opponents and taking the game seriously.”
Having won three trophies (the MTN8 Cup twice and the Nedbank Cup) in the last two seasons, the Bucs coach is itching for another title and says he has some good memories playing the Nedbank Cup.
“We are hard workers that is why we managed to get trophies. There is nothing else besides that, and we want to repeat the same feat this season. When I think about this competition, I can only think about extraordinary memories in the semifinal and final,” he added.
“So, we want to be there again. But the way to do that is to win every game in the competition. This is a knockout game, and not the league.”