Riveiro Downplays Pirates’ CAFCL Chances
Orlando Pirates coach Jose Riveiro has played down the Buccaneers’ chances of lifting the coveted CAF Champions League trophy this season, despite being the only unbeaten side in the competition with a run of 11 games without a defeat.
In the unbeaten streak, Riveiro guided the Sea Robbers to eight wins, including away triumphs over reigning champions Al Ahly in Cairo, CR Belouizdad, and recently MC Alger, both in Algiers respectively, with three draws in the process.
With a narrow 1-0 aggregate advantage heading into the second leg of their quarterfinals clash against the Algerian champions on Wednesday (18:00), the Spanish mentor is not getting ahead of himself, insisting that they are taking it one game at a time as they seek a semi-final berth.
“We believe that we can win tomorrow, that we can face the game with the intentions to win, not thinking so much about what happened one week ago in Algeria. It’s true that we have a little bit of an advantage in the score right now with that goal that we scored there,” said Riveiro.
“But still, we have to think about what are the reasons behind the fact that we are still alive in this competition and it’s about the way we want to play football, it’s about our personality, it’s about the way the guys are expressing themselves and tomorrow we don’t want to be a different team.
“And that’s the only thing that’s on our minds, to go game by game, and tomorrow is Champions League time, it’s quarterfinals and [we are] all in in this game.”
Riveiro went on to respond to Mamelodi Sundowns coach Miguel Cardoso’s wishes for an all-South African CAF Champions League final, reiterating his stance of not getting carried away by the possibility of reaching the latter stages of Africa’s elite club competition.
“In our minds, it’s all about all the things we need to do tomorrow to deserve to be in that semi-final – we want it. We have been fighting since day one to find ourselves in this scenario, to be as competitive as we are,” he added.
“And the way we managed to be here today is just thinking about the next game. We don’t think about anything else; we want to win every game. We want to win tomorrow [vs MC Alger]; we want to win in the weekend again [vs Marumo Gallant on Sunday] when we are involved in the [Nedbank] cup.
“We will continue in the next week, and that’s it. Thinking about [the final] is not going to help me, so that’s where my mind is.”
The last time the Soweto giants appeared in the knockout stages of the competition, they went all the way to the final, where they suffered a 3-1 defeat to Al Ahly over a two-legged final in the 2012/13 campaign. It remains to be seen whether history will repeat itself.
