Riveiro proud of Pirates after Champions League qualification

Orlando Pirates coach Jose Riveiro could not hide how proud he was of his charges after the Buccaneers qualified for the Caf Champions League.

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This was after Pirates drew 1-1 with SuperSport United in a DStv Premiership match at the Orlando Stadium on Saturday afternoon.

The result was enough for the Buccaneers to topple Stellenbosch FC to take the second spot and qualify for the lucrative continental competition. Stellies surrendered their second position after they suffered a 2-1 loss to Richards Bay on the last day of the season.

All is not lost though for Steve Barker’s team as they will still play in the Caf Confederation Cup by virtue of finishing third on the log.

“It was a very tough game to end the season, against an opponent that decided to give us more initiative and wait for us in a medium block, which was difficult to deal with because there was not much space behind the last line,” Riveiro told the media after the game.

“We got an important goal before half-time but in the second half we speculated a bit with the result, I think the participation of Bradley [Grobler] in the second 45 also made a big difference. He’s difficult to deal with aerially. He dropped balls to [Shandre] Campbell and they started dominating territorially a little bit more and equalised,” he added.

Despite achieving their goal of finishing second and qualifying for the Champions League, Riveiro was not pleased with his team’s showing in the last 15 minutes of the second half.

“It was uncertain in the end if the 1-1 could be enough, but you don’t want to not to leave it like that on purpose, you start to be more conservative and it wasn’t entertaining in the last 15 minutes but the result was good enough today to achieve the objective we were looking for.

“Congratulations to everyone involved in this achievement and also I don’t say congratulations but very well done to Stellenbosch because I think they had a remarkable season, today it’s us in that spot but everyone can see that margins were very small.

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“Fantasatic result. Fantastic that Pirates will be in the Champions League next season again. I’m really proud that Pirates will represent South Africa on the continent and hopefully better than the last time,” concluded Riveiro.

Pirates will now change their focus to the Nedbank Cup final against Mamelodi Sundowns at the Mbombela Stadium on Saturday.