Orlando Pirates coach Mandla Ncikazi says the artificial turf won’t hinder them as much as their last defeat in Libya ahead of their 1st leg CAF Confederation Cup semi-final.
Pirates face Libyan giants Al Ahli SC in Benghazi on a pitch where they suffered a 3-2 defeat on back in February in the group stages – before eventually going on to win the group and advance to the knockout stages.
However, they face an Ahli side who beat Al Ittihad, the team Pirates were grouped with and Ncikazi is aware they face an even bigger challenge this time around.
“We have a very good team that can adapt to any situation, we’ve played here before, we just have to impose our game when we have the ball, while we adapt to theirs when we don’t have it,” Ncikazi said in the pre-match press conference.
“The most important thing is to score here and get a result so that when we go home we can have the comfort of an away goal.
“It does give us an advantage that we’ve been here before, we’ve played on this artificial turf even though they’ve changed the surface a bit. I think the adaptation will be better than the first time although we’re playing two different teams. This one is tactically [superior] with no disrespect to [Al Ittihad].
“At this stage, we just have to focus on winning the match, we’ve played against a full crowd, we’ve played in an empty stadium but I think it’s better to play without an empty stadium away from home.”
When asked whether the club prioritised the fixture by resting some of their regular faces in the 1-0 defeat against TS Galaxy in mid-week, Ncikazi denied the notion from the Libyan press.
“We’ve got two assignments that we have to deal with, we’re playing the league in South Africa, you’ve got the CAF competition, we need to be smart to try and present a good team for the league, present a good team for the CAF competition – but for us, we try to play every match to win,” he continued.
“We have players that are injured, Paseka Mako, other than that we have everyone available to start the match tomorrow.”
The Buccaneers face off against Ahli this afternoon at the Martyrs of February Stadium in Benghazi at 18h00.
