Pirates coach Riveiro defends tactics after AmaZulu draw

Orlando Pirates’ failure to be consistent has raised a lot of questions about head coach Jose Riveiro’s tactics and formation.

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Playing with only one striker has been the main talking point despite Riveiro’s charges playing well.

But the club has been registering many draws with the last one being the 1-1 stalemate with AmaZulu FC at Orlando Stadium on Friday.

Riveiro, however, has defended the way he set up his Pirates line-ups, saying each game comes with a different approach and that requires one to constantly change his formations.

“We played with a back four in our last game against Richards Bay. The formations are flexible, we do modifications in every game, sometimes looking for something in our offensive phase, sometimes in our defensive phase. Today (Friday) we were playing 4-3-3 and the set-up is something that we usually check in the beginning of the game, the papers (team-sheet) we get from the opponents,” said the Pirates coach.

“The fact that we sometimes lose points is not absolutely in relation to playing three at the back, two at the back or no one at the back. There are some reasons we can explain, we can work on and the other reasons that we can’t explain. Football is a game where you also need luck in some other moments of the game.”

“I think today for example we were lucky to score the equaliser just before half-time. Then we started the second half with a different scenario. We were unlucky to have to substitute our keeper (Richard Ofori) and stop the momentum and rhythm,” concluded the Spanish coach.