The Spaniard also heaped praise on his new recruit Lesedi Kapinga, who joined as a free-agent a few days ago after leaving Sundowns. Riveiro hopes Kapinga will adapt quickly to Pirates’ way of doing things, cautioning they will be a difficult team to beat after adding a number of new players like him, Karim Kimvuidi, Katlego Otladisa and many others on their roster.
“I know that he [Kapinga] is a good human first of all. He’s a professional player and I know what everybody knows as well that he’s a talented player with capacity to help the team to play better. He’s one more player in the group, like everybody else, he has the same chances to make an impact, hopefully he’ll adapt to our style soon,” Riveiro said.
“We are going to try to be a difficult team for everybody. We are a better team than one month ago. Now we have to show it on the pitch, obviously it doesn’t matter what I say but we have a balanced team with quality in every line and with huge terrible competition inside the group. We have 38 good football players and everybody must be ready to accept the challenge because it’s going to be tough to get the minutes but I think we’ll get the benefits of that at the end of the day.”
Riveiro predicts four challengers for Sundowns rule
Bucs coach picks his team, Chiefs, City and SuperSport to fight for title
Image: Sydney Seshibedi/Gallo Images
Orlando Pirates coach Jose Riveiro believes the league title will be hotly contested by at least four teams in the 2023/24 season, to give perennial champions Mamelodi Sundowns a challenge.
“For sure there’ll be a number of teams apart from Sundowns who’ll challenge for the title. History says that there’s at least four, five contenders for the title in my opinion,” Riveiro said on the sidelines of the DStv Premiership launch at MultiChoice in Randburg last week.
“I think that Pirates, Chiefs, SuperSport, I think they were very sharp in the market and they are going to have strong teams again. I also think a lot hasn’t been said about how Cape Town City finished last season and they will have continuity because they managed to keep their key players. It’s a difficult league. Everybody needs points in every stage of the season.”
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The Spaniard also heaped praise on his new recruit Lesedi Kapinga, who joined as a free-agent a few days ago after leaving Sundowns. Riveiro hopes Kapinga will adapt quickly to Pirates’ way of doing things, cautioning they will be a difficult team to beat after adding a number of new players like him, Karim Kimvuidi, Katlego Otladisa and many others on their roster.
“I know that he [Kapinga] is a good human first of all. He’s a professional player and I know what everybody knows as well that he’s a talented player with capacity to help the team to play better. He’s one more player in the group, like everybody else, he has the same chances to make an impact, hopefully he’ll adapt to our style soon,” Riveiro said.
“We are going to try to be a difficult team for everybody. We are a better team than one month ago. Now we have to show it on the pitch, obviously it doesn’t matter what I say but we have a balanced team with quality in every line and with huge terrible competition inside the group. We have 38 good football players and everybody must be ready to accept the challenge because it’s going to be tough to get the minutes but I think we’ll get the benefits of that at the end of the day.”
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