Orlando Pirates pulled of a smash and grab to beat Mamelodi Sundowns to the Nedbank Cup at the Mbombela Stadium.
Sundowns took the lead before Pirates equalised and then got the last minute winner through Relebohile Mofokeng.
That goal sent the stadium to raptures, with Pirates defending their title. The win also meant that they won the competition back-to-back. Furthermore, they beat Sundowns for the second domestic final in a row. Earlier in the season, the Buccaneers beat Masandawana in the MTN8 final.
Mabasa and Mofokeng benched
But before even a ball was kicked, the Pirates team sheet sprung a couple of surprises. Two of the biggest surprises being the omissions of inform duo Tshegofatso Mabasa and Relebohile Mofokeng. Coach Jose Riveiro has since explained his thinking behind starting the likes of Evidence Makgopa and Monnapule Saleng instead.
“We’re here to make decisions, and we try to make the decisions that we feel are gonna help us win the game. We have many players on form who didn’t start, but they gave us good performances in the previous games. It was hard for me to not play them (Mabasa and Mofokeng) from the beginning but we know this type of game, I say we know because it’s not only me but the whole group, I think I said many times that we need to dominate many games.” Riveiro said.
Riveiro then went deeper into the Pirates strategy for the game.
Riveiro explains Pirates’ approach
“We started Makgopa, for example, instead of Tshego (Mabasa). Like I said before the match, we have to accept that you will spend most of the time far from [Ronwen] Williams rather than close to Williams. And Evidence can help us a lot in that scenario, the speed of [Monnapule] Saleng, the capacity of Deon Hotto to repeat efforts to hold [Khuliso] Mudau in positions that he was forced to play in the first-half. There’s a lot of components and because we won we can say it worked, I think we are happy with the plan.” Said Riveiro as per FARPost.
In the end, the Riveiro plan made him look like a genius, but then had Pirates lost? It would’ve been a different story.