Jose Riveiro downplays the impact of Royal AM’s late cancellation on their programme

Pirates were scheduled to play Royal AM Thursday night at the Harry Gwala Stadium, but the PSL suspended their fixtures indefinitely, pending clarification of their issues with SARS and their operation under a curator.  

Pirates travelled back from Cairo early this week and were asked if the cancellation of this fixture was a blessing in disguise.

"No, not really, look it's a permanent adaptation to the circumstances, our job and this is one more. We were prepared to travel to Durban and stay there for the rest of the week, have a good camp, preparing these two games, we couldn't unfortunately, it was impossible and again we have to change again,” Riveiro said.

“Our schedule is, it's the second time this season, once against Cape Town City in Cape Town because of the weather conditions we had to play 24 hours later and we had to find a way to stay focused in the game and this time it's changing a little bit, the plans."

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With Sundowns having extended the gap between them and Pirates to six points last night after coming back from a goal down to bear Magesi FC 2-1, Riveiro says they would have loved to play on Thursday night, but it’s out of their hands, and now they have switched their focus to the Nedbank Cup last 32 clash against Richards Bay on Sunday.

"We really would like to play the game that we are supposed to be playing today [Thursday night], trust me and fight for those three points but it was impossible and now we have to switch our minds,” the coach explained.

“[You] need to understand like I said before that we're playing a final, if we want to win the Nedbank Cup we have to play the final since the first day because everybody wants to do well in these types of tournaments and it's a permanent adaptation to the schedule, that's what football means right now in terms of planning and we don't complain about it."