If there’s one team that always give Orlando Pirates nightmares, that’s Cape Town City.

Since their formation in 2016, after buying the Premiership status of Mpumalanga Black Aces, the Citizens have only lost one of their nine meetings with the Buccaneers, racking up three victories and five draws in the process.

One of the memorable catastrophes Pirates have suffered at the hands of City in recent era came in April 2018 when Ayanda Patosi’s solitary strike all but ended Bucs’ title hopes in the 2017/18 campaign, where they eventually finished as runners-up to champions Mamelodi Sundowns.

Instrumental City defender Taariq Fielies has high hopes they’ll continue to inflict more agony on the trophy-hungry Buccaneers when the two sides meet in the MTN8 quarterfinals at Orlando Stadium tomorrow (6pm).

“History says we always have a good run against Pirates, hopefully we can continue with that. The aim is to go to the next round and I believe we have what it takes to beat Pirates again,’’ Fielies told Sowetan.

Nevertheless, the 28-year-old centre-back underlined they won’t just bank on history to do the job for them. “As much as we’ve been able to get good results against them, we can’t bank on that. We still need to work for the win, it won’t come on a silver platter.’’

City were one of the top performers in the famed bio-bubble, where they garnered 15 points off a possible 21, with five wins and two defeats to finish sixth on the log. The solid central defensive partnership of Fielies and Abbubaker Mobara was one of the contributors to the side’s rich form.

“We will do our best to make sure we continue with the kind of form we showed in the bubble as a team. Coming to my understanding with Bara [Mobara], we played together previously in the youth teams of Ajax [Cape Town  [now known as Cape Town Spurs], so that’s where we developed  this chemistry,’’ Fielies stated.

“We know each other’s strengths and weaknesses, so it is easy to play together. We have other players who play at the same position, so there’s a healthy competition in the team.’’

The impressive combination of Fielies and Mobara saw the latter earn a Bafana Bafana call-up for the recent friendly games against Namibia and Zambia.

Did the snub disappoint Fielies? “I was not disappointed at all. In fact, I was happy for Bara and it motivated me to push harder,’’ said the City man.