Orlando Pirates coach Jose Riveiro is hoping his side can have a “good comeback” when they face Royal AM in the next DStv Premiership encounter on Tuesday evening.
The Buccaneers failed to hit the ground running in their league opener against Stellenbosch FC after conceding a narrow 1-0 defeat at the Danie Craven Stadium in Stellenbosch.
A 42nd minute goal by Antonio Van Wyk was enough for Stellies to see off Pirates and walk away with all three points.
Riveiro insists his side will go back to the drawing board and hopefully work towards claiming a positive result in the next league game on Tuesday.
“Look, they know when they don’t perform at the level that you expect them to perform. They know … you don’t need to tell them,” Riveiro told SuperSport TV.
“We know what we are doing, what we are looking for. And when we are not at the level, they are the first ones to usually, you know, say, ‘mea culpa’. We are critical with ourselves. But today, I don’t think it’s a way to be creative with ourselves. These are the two to make sure that we have a good comeback on Tuesday.”
“Psychologically, I think we are we are ready or I want to think that we are ready and we have 36 players in the squad to try to mitigate the fact that we have to play eight games in August with a long trips and long waits in the airports and all of these things that we’re going to find playing in the continent,” Riveiro added.
“But we had time in preseason to prepare ourselves for this scenario. It’s easy to say that we want to compete in every competition, so then we need to live up to what we say.
“We are lucky that we have to play on Tuesday again at home and show everyone that the loss to Stellenbosch it was just an accident.”
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