Jose Riveiro happy to have overcome the Gaborone hoodoo against Jwaneng Galaxy

Playing in front of a packed National Stadium in Gaborone, Botswana on Saturday, Pirates dished out a brilliant performance with goals from Tshegofatso Mabasa and Deon Hotto.

Galaxy beat Pirates on penalties to reach the lucrative group stages last season, and Riveiro is satisfied to have turned things around.

"It was painful to not go to the group stages last season and the reason why was Jwaneng was better than us so we have again the opportunity to go to the group stage. More than the motivation we still know how difficult it is to play here, how difficult is this field for a team like us, we know and like I said, it's one year later we have one more year of experience together,” Riveiro said.

“Our players went through many different things after that game, we got eliminated from this competition in a way that was difficult to accept. We are here again after one year, now it's easy to say with the result on our side that we did well."

Pirates were also eliminated in the 2010 CAF Champions League by Gaborone United on an away goal rule in the preliminary stages.

Riveiro was also happy to see his players managing to hold their nerves, winning and keeping a clean sheet against a strong opponent coached by a respected South African tactician in Morena Ramoreboli.

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"To play here, it's extremely difficult. It's been a challenge one more time after one year, we know about the difficulty of playing Jwaneng, like I said before the match during the group stage how difficult they can be, especially playing at home,” the coach added.

“Today was the proof, we got a good result, we managed to capitilise some good moments in the 90 minutes. It could be different as well, it could be that Jwaneng managed to find the net and we managed to double the lead. It's a good result but it's not over, not at all, still 90 minutes to play at least."

In this first leg, Pirates fielded some new signings, handing former Stellenbosch captain and right-back Deano van Rooyen his debut and bringing on experienced campaigner in this competition and Angola international Gilberto as well as former SuperSport United midfielder Selaelo “Iniesta” Rasebotja.