Orlando Pirates coach Jose Riveiro is happy with the way his players responded to critics in the Premier Soccer League game against Mamelodi Sundowns.
The defending Premier Soccer League champions came into the Sunday fixture at the FNB Stadium as favourites owing to their recent form and latest head-to-head record against the Sea Robbers. However, a brace from Relebohile Mofokeng was enough to silence Masandawana who got their lone strike from Khuliso Mudau to ensure the game ended 2-1.
Coach Riveiro is unhappy with the way critics are writing his team off, in favour of the Miguel Cardoso-led outfit.
‘You have to always fight for the points'
“Every point is important in a league when there’s one team who will finish close to 80 points probably by the end of the season, so if you want to compete with them, when you look at the schedule you can’t say okay here if we get a point, it’s fine,” the Spaniard told the media.
“Playing against them, getting a point was not going to be alright, you have to always fight for the points, it’s a pity that we’re not arriving in this game – we’re going to the space of the ‘if’s’ but we have four games more to play than them.
“It would be nice to have those games played already, come here maybe, even if we’re fix or seven points behind, not even three, just that little advantage will give the game a different dimension, I’m sure. It will speak more clearly about our reality.”
You want to see your rivals drop points – Riveiro
“The reality is that we have a lot of points, it’s not frequent at this moment of the season with this amount of games but if you only look at the gap you can maybe think like people who were thinking too much this week, that it’s over, we’re not doing well. All these things you were asking me before the match, instead of asking me about the match, and now we’re here,” Riveiro continued.
“I said before the match it’s three points, but people call this a six-pointer when we play, we play we get a result or not, we go to the locker room, you check your phone and check, you want to see that the teams you are chasing didn’t get the result.
“We know we got the result immediately, and the team we’re chasing, didn’t get a result, it was an opportunity to reduce the distance but again, still a long way to go, and again we’re playing against a team who is used to collecting a lot of points,” he concluded.
Pirates are second on the table with 43 points, 16 less than Sundowns.
