Pirates coach Riveiro says they let Royal AM feel too comfortable

Orlando Pirates might have won 4-2 against Royal AM in their DStv Premiership tie at Orlando Stadium on Tuesday, but head coach Jose Riveiro was not entirely happy.

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Riveiro says the team wasn’t defending well in the early stages of the game.

Pirates would still go on to score three goals in the opening 35 minutes of the game, before the away side pulled one back just before half time.

“It was a strange beginning to the game, we started defending not the way we wanted and that allowed Royal AM to be more comfortable than what we want the opponents to be when they are here in Orlando,” said Riveiro after the match.

“But little by little we also started to create some problems for them and started asking questions in our build-ups.

“We managed to get a beautiful lead, 3-0 after 30 something minutes, which is not frequent in football. But again, the way we were defending in the first was not really nice. Like I said, they were a bit too comfortable on the ball. Because of that, they managed to make it 3-1 before half-time.”

Riveiro says they didn’t know what to expect from Royal AM in the second half.

Despite getting a number of chances to kill off the game, they almost let the KwaZulu-Natal club come back.

“In the beginning of the second half, we were uncertain what the opponent was going to do. It took some time for us to get the possession on the field even though we got one good chance for Relebohile Mofokeng, and if I’m not mistaken there was one more at least,” he added.

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“But it’s a football game, if you don’t kill the game when you have the opportunity and we had a lot of opportunities to do it – you can be punished easily. And we were punished and it was 3-2 with about two to three minutes to play. I think we were all a bit nervous in the end, but finally Bandile Shandu managed to score the fourth goal.”