‘It was an ugly game’: Riveiro after Pirates’ draw against Chippa

Jose Riveiro says Orlando Pirates could not find rhythm in “an ugly game” and suggested Chippa United were allowed to get away with too many fouls, after Bucs’ 1-1 DStv Premiership draw in Gqeberha on Tuesday.

Bucs coach Riveiro said continuous interruptions made life difficult for Pirates. The Soweto giants opened the scoring through Bandile Shandu’s 24th-minute strike at Nelson Mandela Bay Stadium, with Pirates' on-loan player Goodman Mosele equalising for Chippa in the 65th.

“From my perspective, it was an ugly game, with a lot of interruptions, with so many emotions but not so much football,” Riveiro said.

“So yeah, 1-1, one point for each — they celebrate, we don’t, and we move to the next one.”

Pirates scored nine goals in their previous two games — a 4-2 league win against Royal AM and 5-0 MTN8 quarterfinal victory against Sekhukhune United. Riveiro said he did not believe complacency had an effect on the result against Chippa.

Having said with some bravado he hoped all teams would play with a low block against Pirates after his team’s opening defeat of the season away against Stellenbosch FC, “because we will beat them”, Riveiro was less enthused about such tactics on Tuesday night.

“It was a difficult game — again a low block, two lines, very compact, no spaces,” he said.

“I’ll repeat myself [from what he said after the Stellies loss], but it’s the truth — you feel the game is under control but it’s not, because you need to expose yourself to create an advantage. They only need to steal the ball and run behind you in one transition. So the game is on the edge.

“We managed to get the lead, the game was under control. In the second half there were a lot of interruptions — even in the first half there were too many. You managed to count the amount of times the [medics] went to the field. But I’ll try to be polite.

“We couldn’t find continuity in our game. Every time we found a player in an advantage in a half-space, like with Patrick [Maswanganyi] in the first half, the game was interrupted with fouls.

“It’s easy to defend when you only need to make contact with a foul but nothing happens after that [from the officials]. It’s difficult to find rhythm in a game like this.

“In the second half Chippa were looking for a goal and they went to the limit for that. We had to adjust to a lot of things. We couldn’t be comfortable on the ball due, again, to interruptions.

“But we finished the last part of the game better than Chippa with two, three clear chances for the three points. But it was not possible.

“The guys fought like animals again for the result. It was not our best game but I didn’t at all see that the players didn’t compete.”

Pirates open their 2023-2024 Caf Champions League campaign with their first qualifying round away leg fixture against Djabal Club in Comoros on Saturday (2.30pm South African time).