Chase for Champions League spot ‘in Pirates’ hands’
Orlando Pirates coach Jose Riveiro sounds confident his side still has a firm grip on who will finish second in the DStv Premiership and claim the remaining Caf Champions League spot despite the setback of a 1-1 home draw against Sekhukhune United on Saturday.
Pirates spurned a 1-0 lead to share the spoils with a team that beat them 2-0 in Polokwane in the first round.
But despite the result bringing third-placed SuperSport United back into strong contention after their 1-0 victory over Kaizer Chiefs, Riveiro said it was still very much in Bucs’ hands to finish second.
SuperSport and Pirates are now on 51 points, separated by two goals to Pirates ahead of their final matches away to Sekhukhune and AmaZulu FC respectively.
“We don’t know how many goals we’re going to need.
“It’s going to be a difficult game away against AmaZulu, it’s an excellent team,” the Pirates coach said.
“First of all, we need to think about how we’re going to win the game.
“It’s the last game of the season and people will be watching the phones checking what’s happening in other venues to see what others are doing and what you need to do.
“It’s not our objective [to finish second] when we start the season, but right now it’ sa big achievement for all of us. But first of all we need to win [against AmaZulu], so we need three points and as many goals as possible — but maybe we need only one.
“We have a small advantage, but if you think about this scenario three months ago and the advantage our opponents [SuperSport] had in that moment, I think we can be proud of the performance of the team in the last part of the season.
“We’re glad to be in the last fixture with the opportunity in our hands.
“We’re [still] second and we’re going to fight for that. “That’s all we need to do. “We need to win and hopefully with enough advantage to consolidate the second-place position.”
Pirates have two former AmaZulu captains Tapelo Xoki and Makhehlene Makhaula now playing for their side, but*
Riveiro said that did not necessarily give them much insight into what to expect at the Moses Mabhida Stadium on Saturday.
“Nowadays there are no secrets [that you’ll get from former players of opposition teams],” the Spaniard said.
“We all know as much as we need to know about the opponent.
“It’s about how deep you want to go about your analysis.
“We’re going to play one more final with AmaZulu, and I’m sure that for them it’s going to be an important game.
“From now we’re going to have a couple of hours to relax, but after that, we’ll start with the next game’s preparations.
“Hopefully we can fulfil our ambitions in a stadium that has a lot of Buccaneers fans who will celebrate the second position with us.”
Terrence Dzvukamanja opened the scoring for Bucs against Sekhukhune, but former Bucs defender Edwin Gyimah was allowed to level just before halftime.
The goal was Dzvukamanja’s seventh of the season, and all of them have been headers, mostly supplied by Bucs’ right winger Monnapule Saleng, who did the same on Saturday.
“Terrence is an experienced player,” Riveiro said of the Zimbabwean attacker.
“He proved himself many times that he has the capacity to score.
“It was difficult for him in the beginning of the season in terms of minutes, and his ability to be selected was not consistent enough.
“In a team like this, with the competition for places, it’s difficult to get a chance.
“But once he started to get that continuity to complete weeks to train and be available for selection, then he was an exceptional player.
“He’s a very smart player with capacity to score goals, like he’s been showing in recent games.
“But we’re trying to help all the players perform and we’d like to see Terrence scoring goals.