Pirates not taking Cup opponents All Stars lightly

The Nedbank Cup normally comes with surprises and upsets and that’s something Orlando Pirates coach Jose Riveiro will be looking to avoid when his side take on lower league side All Stars FC.

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Pirates face the Motsepe Foundation Championship side in the first round of the Ke Yona Cup at the Wits Football Stadium on Saturday night.

Riveiro is looking to go all out for a win and progress to the next stage of the competition with the intention of reaching the final after they managed to win the MTN8 earlier this season.

“It’s a different competition but same responsibility. Competitions like these give all the 32 teams a chance to dream of a beautiful night,” said Riveiro ahead of the match.

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“We are facing the tournament with a lot of respect for our opponent. Our objective is to play as much as possible in the competition. We want to hopefully find ourselves in the final. But we have to go step-by-step and the first step is to deal with a difficult team in All Stars on Saturday.”

The Nedbank Cup has already pulled a huge surprise when SuperSport United were knocked out of the tournament by fellow Pretoria outfit Dondol Stars, who play in the Motsepe Foundation Championship.

“This type of competition brings you the possibility for all of us, the PSL teams and teams that are coming from the lower leagues, to dream about having beautiful nights like what happened yesterday (Friday when Dondol beat SuperSport),” Riveiro cautioned.

“It happens everywhere, even in Spain where I am from. The format was different a long time ago and there were always surprises of big clubs being eliminated in the first round.”