Orlando Pirates were delighted to win the first leg of their MTN8 semifinal away against Stellenbosch on Sunday but coach Jose Riveiro warned afterwards the job was not yet done.
Pirates are the holders for the MTN8 and made a good start in their bid to reach this year’s final as they won 2-1 at the Athlone Stadium, taking a lead to the Orlando Stadium for 24 September’s return leg.
“We are happy, we celebrate the victory because it's very important for us but also understanding that this is just the first leg and we have to do a good job in 21 days,” said Riveiro at the post-match press conference.
“We play to win every game so I don't think that our approach will be casual for the second leg. We want to be a winning team, we want to enjoy playing football and the only way we know how to do it is attacking, looking for the goal and and it's not going to be the problem when we play home in the second leg.
“One thing is clear for us and that is we respect Stellenbosch a lot as a team. So we will never relax in front of Stellenbosch because we know the difficulty of the games against them,” he added.
“Stellenbosch were better in the early stages of the first half; better in terms of possession and making our buildup very uncomfortable. We prepared the game in a different way and they were much more aggressive than what we expected.
“Little by little we managed to get control of the game and we were close to finding our first goal when they got the red card. In the second half, we tried to do everything to be consistent and get more possibilities with the talent that we have in our forwards to get the goal and I was extremely happy with the attitude,” said the coach.
