Orlando Pirates coach Jose Riveiro has revealed the secret behind the club’s winning streak, saying the depth in the Buccaneers’ squad makes his job much easier.
Pirates are hitting good form at the right time with the season about to conclude, as their 2-1 win over Cape Town City at Orlando Stadium was their fifth league win on the bounce.
This is what coach Riveiro intends to do – to keep on winning to strengthen Pirates’ grip for the second spot of the DStv Premiership table to qualify for the CAF Champions League next season.
Overall, Pirates have won seven successive matches and Riveiro is relishing this incredible run.
“Challenge is nice,” reacted Riveiro.
“I want to find myself every season at this moment of the season, fighting for important things, for the possibilities to get more titles for this club.
“We embrace the moment. We really want to stay in this moment for as long as possible.
The Spaniard also explained that the depth in his squad makes runs like this possible, because they have so much quality in the line-up and on the bench to impact games.
“The key is, this is what the players want, they want it every day – they are making my life very difficult to select 20 or the 11 [that has to start the game], because we have many players who really want to perform that are not in the squad,” he added.
“We are very lucky that we have a lot of options every week to decide, to execute our game plan before and during the game like we did against City. If I don’t have the level of players that I have on the bench, it probably doesn’t matter how good my ideas are as a coach.
“It is always much more difficult to change what is going to happen at the end of the game.
“But we have excellent players in every position and that is why they are coming to contribute and make an impact and that is the way we want to continue, that we want to achieve things together.
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“It is the fact that we are going to fight until the end to get what we want.”
This was also the first time Pirates have won five league matches on the bounce since the 2019/20 season. In that season, Pirates won six league matches in a row, matching that when they won the league title in the 2010/11 season.
They will look to emulate that record when they visit TS Galaxy at Mbombela Stadium on Sunday (15:00).
