Orlando Pirates coach Jose Riveiro has hailed his side for dominating SuperSport United in their 2-0 Betway Premiership win, at Orlando Stadium, on Tuesday evening.
The victory took Pirates to the top of the table with four wins from four as they moved to 12 points.
Defending champions Mamelodi Sundowns are second with nine points, but have only played three games.
Goals from Evidence Makgopa and Deon Hotto sealed the contest for Pirates.
Jose Riveiro on their 2-0 win over SSU to move them top of the table. 💯☠️@orlandopirates | @iDiskiTimes pic.twitter.com/1XgIBhswvl
— Lorenz Köhler (@Lorenz_KO) October 22, 2024
Under control
But it was the nature of victory, with 57% possession and 15 shots to the eight of SuperSport that pleased Riveiro the most.
“It was a tough, tough, tough game that started in the best possible way with an early goal in our first attack,” said Riveiro.
“I think it was really under control most of the time from our build up.”
Despite their domination which saw Pirates complete 485 passes to the 385 of their opponents, it did not make the encounter easy by any means.
“We had to deal, I don't know if that was the intention from the beginning, but maybe because of the ball we had to deal with high pressure from the start. I think we did a good job even though we made a couple of mistakes in our build up, that gave them the opportunity to create some problems.
“But I think we managed to, especially to not allow SuperSport to step in our box. I think they had a really, really low number of touches in our box, which is very important against this team.”
Singling out defenders Deano van Rooyen and Hotto, Riveiro, dished out the praise.
“Deano [van Rooyen] and [Deon] Hotto, sometimes also with the cooperation of the wingers, they did a really good job to block the crosses, which is a dangerous element of SuperSport.
“I think the first half was quite under control. There was a moment in the end that we defended, a little bit too low and we tried to correct it in the second half. Then they changed to a back three early in the second half, and we were not defending exactly the way we wanted.”
“Again, we defended a little bit too close to SuperSport, but doing a good job not allowing them to go to dangerous spaces.”
Throwing on defender Innocent Maela just after the hour mark, also proved to be a good move said the coach.
“I think with the introduction of Innocent [Maela] we had even more control in those situations. I think we managed to create a lot of chances, three or four clear chances in the second half to finish the game. In the end we scored a very late goal to consolidate the victory, it was an important three points.”