Jose Riveiro accepts Mamelodi Sundowns dominance as Orlando Pirates bows out of the title race

Riveiro was responding to questions about not being able to stop Sundowns’ dominance this season as they are cruising to their record-extending sixth league title in a row.

Sundowns’ emphatic 5-1 victory over Royal AM on Tuesday night, has meant that Pirates and Kaizer Chiefs are out of the title race as they can’t finish beyond 58 points with Sundowns now on 59 points after 23 matches.

Only SuperSport United still has a slight chance to catch their Pretoria neighbours now, as Riveiro reflects on the title race.

"Obviously, we are so far in terms of our points. We also have to accept that they are doing an excellent job, they've won 19 games and having 19 victories in the league is a good record," he said.

When Pirates upstaged Sundowns in the MTN8 semi-finals, knocking them out of the tournament in sensational fashion and beating them 3-0 in the second leg, leading to the changes in the technical team, many saw this as a turnaround in the Brazilians’ dominance.

But it wasn’t to be and Pirates went on to be inconsistent in the league. Riveiro says they will analyse ways to reduce the gap with Sundowns at the end of the season.

"We have the first half of the season where we were the better team in the MTN (MTN8), during the whole tournament and every game we played there. But we couldn't maintain the same level of performance in the league and in that period, we gave an advantage to our opponents that we couldn't recover anymore, it's a fact. In the end of the season we will have time to analyse and realise the way in which we can reduce that gap," he concluded.