Monyane pins Pirates’ treble hopes on ‘exciting’ Gilberto

In the past 10 seasons, no other team has finished in second spot as often as Orlando Pirates in the DStv Premiership and this season, the Buccaneers are looking to stop being Mamelodi Sundowns’ “bridesmaids”.

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This is the view of Pirates defender Thabiso Monyane as he looks forward to the start of the new season.

Monyane says having failed to overthrow the Brazilians in the last seven seasons, the Buccaneers now know what needs to be done in order to be league champions again.

“We’re looking forward to starting the season on a high note and the rest will take care of itself. We know what we’re capable of. We know that we can finish the season strong, which is something that we’ve proved [in the past], so we’re looking forward to being consistent throughout the season. We know that sometimes we don’t have to play beautiful football as long as we grind out the results,” said Monyane before revealing the club’s targets for the new season.

“We also know that for the past few seasons we haven’t started the season as good as we wanted to, so we’ll be looking to rectify that. We want to start this season well. We also want to retain our titles – the MTN8 and the Nedbank Cup. We also want to add one more title and make it a treble. Those are our ambitions; those are our goals for this season.”

Having been knocked out of the CAF Champions League in the second round by Jwaneng Galaxy of Botswana, Monyane says this time the Buccaneers will be looking to go all the way in the continental competition.

“Obviously we don’t want to repeat the mistake we made last season when we bowed out of the Champions League very early. This time we want to go all the way.”

Monyane added that Pirates will be looking at one of their exciting new recruits Gilberto, who starred for Angola’s Petro de Luanda in last season’s CAF Champions League, to help them achieve their goal of adding another star to their badge.

The 23-year-old Angolan winger recently joined Pirates from Petro de Luanda on a three-year deal.

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Monyane has been impressed by the winger so far and believes he can help them make the Happy People happy again.

“Gilberto is quite an exciting player. very skillful and very quick. All I can say to the Buccaneers is that it’s going to be an exciting season.”