“It was a decision made under certain circumstances,” says the Spaniard.
Former Orlando Pirates coach Jose Riveiro has spoken about his exit from the club, insisting that he has no regrets about leaving the Buccaneers.
Riveiro, who left Pirates before the end of last season to join Egyptian giants Al-Ahly, is back in the country as part of his collaboration with Carling Black Label.
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After his Bucs exit, reports emerged that the opportunity at Al Ahly triggered Riveiro’s move, but the Spaniard says this is far from the truth, as he was going to leave Pirates anyway.
“I’m not used to looking back in life. It was a decision made under certain circumstances. So, to think about the same thing now in different circumstances, it doesn’t make any sense. It’s easy to make decisions with tomorrow’s journal, like we used to say. I don’t know if people understood the nature of my decision at that time, but I didn’t leave Pirates because of the move to Ahly,” said Riveiro during a conversation with Andile Ncube on Metro FM.
“It was a decision that was made a long, long, long time ago. Before Ahly came along. They knew. And Ahly came later.”
‘The only thing that I didn’t like’
Riveiro added that the only thing he regrets is leaving Pirates before the season was complete. But says he had no choice because Al Ahly wanted him in Cairo immediately for Club World Cup preparations.
“The only thing that I didn’t like about what happened was the fact that I must move before the season ends here. I wasn’t happy about that. I was not ready.
“It was a must. From an Al-Ahly point of view, to prepare for the Club World Cup, then that didn’t happen in the end,” explained Riveiro.
Riveiro on short-lived Al-Ahly stay
Reflecting on his short spell with Al-Ahly, Riveiro believes that he was not given enough time by the impatient club management to implement his philosophy.
“We unfortunately couldn’t start the way we wanted to. I think the people were realising that we were trying to do something different with the group and changing the style of the team in a very short space of time.
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“We only had 10-11 training sessions before the Club World Cup started, and many new signings were joining the group. In terms of performance, I was quite happy, and the fan reaction was very positive. Unfortunately, the beginning of the season did not play out the way we had hoped, and it only took four games for people at the club to lose their patience.”