Pirates not planning to mess around with Venda

JOHANNESBURG – Orlando Pirates Head Coach Jose Riveiro has ruled out making wholesale changes to his team for the Nedbank Cup last-16 clash with Venda Football Academy at the Orlando Stadium today at 8pm

Riveiro fielded a strong starting line-up against All Stars in the first round on February 11 as second-half goals from Monnapule Saleng (62’) and Thembinkosi Lorch (70’) secured a 2-0 victory at the BidVest Stadium.

The Buccaneers have played three games in the DStv Premiership since that cup-tie, recording wins against Maritzburg United (2-1) and Swallows (4-1), while going down 1-0 to arch-rivals Kaizer Chiefs.

With the fixtures coming at a more manageable pace in the league at the moment, Riveiro insists there is no need to rotate his squad for a potentially tricky encounter with the Motsepe Foundation Championship club.

Rotate

“We don’t rotate, especially now that we’re playing one game a week,” the Spaniard said. “So if you find any changes in the starting XI from our last game against Swallows it will be because someone is not available or the coach decides to introduce a different profile player for tactics, but not because of rotation.”

Riveiro has prepared his players as best he can for the visit of VFA and is urging them against complacency as he looks to avoid the same fate suffered by AmaZulu in midweek when they were knocked out of the tournament by Dondol Stars.

Venda have struggled in the second tier this season and find themselves just five points clear of the relegation zone in 14th place after winning just one of the last five league outings.

for us. We always want to win every match and in the past seasons, we were knocked out in the quarterfinals. This time around we want to make sure that we go to the semifinals and we want to win the Champions League. We have goals and we want to reach those goals,” he added.

However, Mudau is not guaranteed to start for Sundowns, with Thapelo Morena also putting his hand up as the duo battle it out for the right-back spot at the club.

“Thapelo is a good player and everyone deserves to play at Sundowns. However, the coaches are the ones who make the final decision on who plays and who does not play. I just need to help the team and make sure that I am doing my best when I am on the pitch,” said Mudau.

VENDA – Venda Football Academy (VFA) players are motivated head of their clash with Orlando Pirates in the quarter-finals of the Nedbank Cup at Orlando Stadium today.

This was revealed by defender Nicholas Motloung. Motloung says there is a lot of positivity around the team to do well against the Sea Robbers, and they believe that they can cause an upset.

“This competition is full of surprises, we have seen it happen a lot of times over the years. Remember what Maluti did to Pirates? There is also TS Galaxy who won the tournament after beating Chiefs in the final. So, anything is possible here and we want to be counted among the history makers of the Nedbank Cup,” said the experienced Motloung, who also played for Polokwane City when they were still in the top flight.

InconsIstent

VFA, however, have been inconsistent in the Motsepe Foundation Championship and the team is in 14th place on the league standings. In their last three games, they played two draws against Casric Stars and University of Pretoria, while losing to All Stars FC.

They last won a match on the first of this month when they beat MM Platinum 3-0. Motloung concedes that their league performance can be better with the remaining games, but adds that at the moment, they have to focus on the game at hand, which is against the Sea Robbers.