Orlando Pirates face Cape Town City FC in a DStv Premiership encounter at the Orlando Stadium on Wednesday.
This match is a fairly even clash between two sides that are only departed by five points on the league table.
Pirates occupy fourth place on the log after 20 games on 31 points while City sit ninth on the table with 26 points from only 18 games.
In their last match, Pirates were in CAF Confederation Cup action where they came from two goals down to defeat Royal Leopards 6-2 at Orlando Stadium on Sunday.
The visiting City were last in action on 20 February in a league match, winning 1-0 at Golden Arrows. Prior to that on 15 February they drew 0-0 with Kaizer Chiefs at Cape Town Stadium.
In the last five league meetings between Bucs and City they sides have won a match apiece along with three draws. Their most recent league encounter ended in a 1-1 draw at Cape Town Stadium on 2 October 2021.
The Buccaneers co-coach Mandla Ncikazi said he was hoping his side would settle down sooner in games unlike how they did in their last ‘come from behind’ win over Royal Leopards in the past weekends CAF Confederation Cup.
“It was the worst start, by any team, I have ever seen in football,” said Ncikazi.
“I thought Leopards were more passionate than us at the start and we took things too easy. We warned our team against that tendency and then we had to fight back.
“We still have a very heavy schedule ahead of us and this week is difficult because of the (Soweto) derby.
“We played on Sunday, then again on Wednesday in a tough match against Cape Town City.
“Then it is Kaizer Chiefs on Saturday. Early next week it’s Nedbank Cup in an away game at Marumo Gallants.”
Ncikazi said they planned on doing squad rotation ahead of the City clash to keep the players fresh.
“It is important to decide on rotating going into the next matches,” said Ncikazi. “You have to ask and decide when do you rotate?”
Cape Town City coach Eric Tinkler is looking forward to challenge the Soweto Giants at Orlando Stadium, now that his new signings are getting used to how things work in the squad.
The Mother City side were busy during the transfer window selling players and making quite a few new acquisitions, namely, striker Mogamat May from Havover Park, right winger Kajally Drammeh from Real de Banjul in Gambia, midfielder Brice Ambina from Renaissance FC in Cameroon and Venezuelan striker Darwin Gonzales.
“We’ve had a few days extra to work with some of the new players and I think they’ll all integrated extremely well,” said former Pirates coach Tinkler.
“I think everybody is highly motivated to go to Orlando Pirates and try to collect some valuable points at this stage of the season.
“We’re going to a big league fixture away from home. Obviously after the break it was important for us to have started well in the league, collecting maximum points against Golden Arrows, which was a positive.
“We know it’s not going to be easy (against Pirates). They’re a team that is looking to ensure that they finish in the top four to qualify for CAF (competitions) again. We’ve obviously set our own targets and we need to go there and compete,” he added.
