Orlando Pirates seek TKO glory

The Buccaneers registered their second loss of the season after going 3-1 down to Mamelodi Sundowns in a thrilling encounter at the Orlando Stadium on Wednesday.

The Soweto giants now shift their focus on the Telkom Knockout quarterfinal match against Polokwane City at the same venue this evening.

“From the point of performance we are very satisfied, but from the point of results we can do much better,” said the Bucs coach earlier this week.

“In all the matches we have played this season where we have drawn or even lost, it was very close to a victory. This is something that drives us to get individually better and to get much better as a team and perform to the highest standards.”

Going into this tie, the Bucs coach says he has strategic plans and he won’t undermine the Limpopo outfit as Bernard Molekwa’s team managed to beat reigning African champions Downs 2-1 in August, before playing to a 2-2 draw with Pirates in August, and more recently, they held Kaizer Chiefs to a 0-0 draw.

“Polokwane are a top-class team. They have shown this by beating Sundowns in Pretoria and holding us the last time and Chiefs on Tuesday. We need to respect all their strong and weak points,” he added.

“We have three strategic targets. To have a better build-up, to have a mechanism of closing down counter-attacks because we played against Polokwane City in the league and we conceded against the run of play from two counter-attacks.

“We want to be much better in creating chances from all possible angles and we want to fix our finishing. Chances need to be buried to get a result.”