Orlando Pirates maintained their unbeaten run against Royal AM after a 1-0 victory at Moses Mabhida Stadium on Wednesday.
The KwaZulu-Natal-based side has never defeated the Buccaneers since purchasing Bloemfontein Celtic’s top-flight league status at the beginning of last season.
The two teams clashed twice in the DStv Premiership last season, with Pirates claiming all the three points at home before playing to a thrilling 2-2 draw in the reverse fixture at Chatsworth Stadium.
In the latest meeting, the Soweto giants returned to winning ways, thanks to Deon Hotto’s solitary strike. In a post-match interview, Pirates head coach Jose Riveiro said he was delighted with his team’s performance.
“In the first half, we didn’t feel so much threatened by the opponents. In the second half, we knew they would want to play more because of the big pitch.
“My target is to help my new team win silverware at the end of the season and also try to finish the season as the top scorer for the league,” she said.
Even though we defended too low, I don’t remember any action where Richard [Ofori] was really threatened,” the Spaniard told the media.
With the 2021/22 CAF Confederation Cup finalists only managing three goals in their last four encounters, the 46-year-old has weighed in on the goal-scoring challenges.
“We are working on it [scoring]. At home, we generated a huge amount of chances to score against Chippa and Swallows. Of course, we want to score more goals. The only thing is to keep building the confidence of our players when we are in the final- third,” the coach added.
The Happy People’s next task is against struggling SuperSport United, who are yet to register a win in three games of the campaign under Gavin Hunt.
Matsatsantsa go into this fixture with two successive losses after going down to AmaZulu and TS Galaxy, respectively.
