Orlando Pirates midfield workhorse Thabang Monare has hailed coach Jose Riveiro's  knack for understanding players' different personalities and backgrounds. 

Despite only arriving in SA last July, Riveiro seems to have already won the hearts of his players, with Monare raving about the Spaniard's persona and his ability to make players feel important. Owing to the red card he got in the Nedbank Cup last 32 clash against All Stars last weekend, Riveiro will be watching from the stands when Pirates host Maritzburg United in a league fixture at Orlando Stadium tonight (7.30pm).

“He [Riveiro] understands us as individuals. He knows how to speak to individuals in certain ways. That’s the trick he brings to the team. He’s a good human being before being a good coach. He has a way of approaching individuals in a different way, understanding that we are different people from different backgrounds,” Monare said of Riveiro.

Monare also gave a lowdown on Riveiro’s way of doing things at training, highlighting each and every department works separately. On facing Maritzburg, Monare emphasised they were not reading too much into the fact that the Team of Choice’s tactician is their former assistant coach Fadlu Davids, focusing on their own game plan. 

“He makes us see football in a more easy way. He makes us work on tasks whereby it’s like a puzzle...we are  pieces of a puzzle and when those pieces are complete we become a bigger picture. He has a way of doing that, where midfielders must do this, the defenders do this, the goalkeepers do this and the strikers as well...so it’s like pieces of a puzzle and when they come together they complete the picture,” Monare explained.

“Mentally we are ready. We have the right attitude and we are playing at home, so we are more than confident that we’ll bag maximum points. We are not too focused on the fact that Maritzburg United are coached by coach Fadlu but we're focusing more on ourselves. The aim is to improve from our last game, that’s how we approach games.”