Orlando Pirates head coach Jose Riveiro was left ruing the uncharacteristic early mistakes from his team in their 2-1 loss to Cape Town Spurs on Wednesday.
Pirates conceded after just the second minute in Spurs’ first win of the season, and were 2-0 down in the 36th minute, though did pull one goal back just before halftime.
Riveiro said it was not the way they had wanted to start, but found things tough going against a hard-working Spurs team.
“Well, obviously it’s an unusual situation and not the situation that we are looking for to start the game losing, giving advantage to the opponent after I don’t know two minutes,” Riveiro said in the post-match presser.
“A very strange action, we are in possession, we are in control, and suddenly we are defending a free kick for no reason. In set pieces, the games are equal. Usually, it is an opportunity for the opponent for free to try to capitalise and they did capitalise and they did it.
“Again, two mistakes in a row in the marking and they managed to put the ball in the net.
“We tried to react after the goal, I think we did it, we created more than enough to equalise the game. And we have a clear action to equalise, actually, from the one-one, we move to the second goal of Cape Town Spurs.
“And with the 2-0, the challenge becomes even much more difficult. But I think we finished the first half really well, with the opponent very exposed, (having) problems to manage to stop us close to the box. Due to that, we managed to reduce the distance with our goal.
“And in the second half, we tried our best. The second half was not really fluid. Obviously, the team who is leading try to interrupt and stop the game as much as possible. They have to keep that advantage.
“But anyway, I think even though in the end, we were a bit disorganised and a bit chaotic looking for at least one point. But I think that overall during the 90 minutes, we create more than enough, but it doesn’t matter.
“You cannot pretend to win the three points away, starting the game losing one nil after one minute in a lack of concentration and then giving even more advantage to the opponent.
“So congratulations to Cape Town Spurs. I think it’s the first victory this season. So I hope it is not the last one and they can move from the place where they are. I think they work very well today and this is football.”
