“The players are not electronic devices that you can plug in, charge their batteries and be ready to play.” These are the words of Orlando Pirates coach Jose Riveiro, explaining the club’s failure in the Carling Cup.
Pirates were hammered 4-0 by Mamelodi Sundowns in the Carling Cup final at the weekend, and Riveiro has attributed the defeat to several issues, including fatigue.
In not so many words, Riveiro suggested that playing two matches in one day is not ideal and made it difficult for him to conduct proper analysis, especially after their Soweto Derby penalty shootout victory.
Riveiro’s troops beat Kaizer Chiefs 6-5 on penalties following a goalless draw after 90 minutes in the Beer Cup semifinal, but the Buccaneers were embarrassed by Sundowns in the final a few hours later.
PLAYERS HAVE DIFFERENT ISSUES
“All of them [players] have different issues, and we have to deal with different circumstances with the resources we have,” added Riveiro.
“It cannot be one reason why we lost; there are multi-factors. It is difficult to describe; it is difficult to do football analysis [due to tournament format].
“Obviously two games, different starting line-ups and then 11 against 10 players and that numerical disadvantage we could not manage.
“Like I said, it is a particular tournament, and you can use the rules in the way that you want, we can do a lot of substitutions. We have 25 players on the game list.
“You can have players on the bench but that doesn’t mean that they are ready to play, we had to deal with the resources that we have.”
Despite the Sundowns’ defeat, the Spanish mentor praised his charges.
“I am extremely proud of how the guys behaved the whole week, from the final, the whole week, they managed to compete,” he said.
“We managed to reach the final, but it was just too much for us. We will have decent time to rest and do other things with our lives, spend time with families and get the energy to be back soon and be ready to play against Sundowns again on December 31.”
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