Orlando Pirates head coach, Jose Riveiro, has vowed to continue applying pressure on Betway Premiership leaders Mamelodi Sundowns as the battle for the league title heats up.
The Buccaneers secured a hard-earned 2-1 victory over Sekhukhune United at the Old Peter Mokaba Stadium on Wednesday evening, keeping them within six points of Sundowns, who themselves triumphed in the Tshwane derby against SuperSport United.
With this crucial win, Pirates remain firmly in the title race, and Riveiro is determined to ensure the pressure stays firmly on the league leaders as the season progresses.
Looking ahead to this Saturday’s highly anticipated top-of-the-table clash at Loftus Stadium, Riveiro expressed that his side feels the weight of responsibility to challenge Sundowns’ dominance and end their long-standing reign at the summit. The Pirates’ head coach emphasized that his team’s ambition remains unwavering, despite the growing intensity of the title race.
“It’s the same pressure since day one when I arrived here. I’m coaching Pirates, a champion team, a winning team, and everybody is expecting us to improve the history of the club, and to get titles,” said Riveiro.
“We’re trying, we’re having a fantastic start – we’re in February, but we can still talk about the start of the league because it’s game number 13 – but at the same time, we are fighting with other good teams.
“One of them being an excellent team, who are the [league] champion for the last seven years, if I’m not wrong, so even though we’ve had an excellent start to the season, we’re still some points behind, but we’re not going to stop, we’ll keep fighting and performing.
“Hopefully we’ll have enough luck every week to get the result and, like I said, and the pressure has been the same since day one – there’s nothing different this season.
“It’s true that right now the team is giving more reasons to the people who think we can make it, and that’s very good new [thing], but there’s nothing new or different in terms of the responsibility that we all feel to be part of this team.”