“We must be at our best and we have to take this game extremely seriously,” said Riveiro.
Orlando Pirates will be looking to keep up their unbeaten run in the CAF Champions League group stage when they come up against Stade d’Abidjan at the Orlando Stadium in Soweto this afternoon (kick-off is at 6pm).
The Buccaneers have won one and drawn two of their opening group matches so far, collecting five points in the process.
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Victory against the Ivory Coast side will strengthen the Buccaneers’ chances of advancing to the last eight of the continental competition.
Pirates coach Jose Riveiro , however, has warned that the Stade d’Abidjan game will not be a walk in the park as the Ivorian outfit showed in their previous encounter which ended in a 1-1 draw in Abidjan three weeks ago. But in all honesty, Pirates should have won easily but they squandered many chances and they ended up taking only a point from it.
“It’s a tricky team and it’s a team that on a good day, they can give you a lot of problems in specific situations like in set play and in transitions. They have a lot of capacity in their front play. It’s not going to be an easy game,” said Riveiro during a press conference at Orlando Stadium on Friday.
“I know when you look at the names in the group, people who don’t really watch these games will feel or think that it’s going to be an easy game for us, but I can tell you that the level in the group is equal. Tomorrow we must be at our best and we have to take this game extremely seriously. Hopefully the fans will come out in big numbers like they did against Al-Ahly and tomorrow we can do the job together.”
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Pirates will face Al-Ahly in their last group game and Riveiro insists that they are not looking that far yet.
“We look at this game as an opportunity to collect points and to collect points and consolidate our position in the group. We’re half way through the group stages, there’s still three more games to play. We still have CRB (CR Belouizdad) to play against in the group before we go to Cairo for the final group game.”
