Jose Riveiro turns focus to Orlando Pirates’ league title race

On Tuesday, Pirates resume their league campaign, aiming to reduce the gap between themselves and runaway log-leaders Mamelodi Sundowns when they face AmaZulu at Moses Mabhida Stadium. 

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Next year will mark 12 years since Pirates, currently 14th on the log with only seven points – 17 points behind Sundowns with three games in hand, last lifted the domestic league title, and Riveiro says the DStv Premiership remains their main focus.

"The league is the most important competition, it goes without saying – 30 games, away and home, against everybody, every kind of circumstance," said Riveiro.

"So, it's the most important competition and we really want to find our rhythm in that competition too. It is a very particular situation [in which] we played in the last 65 or 66 days only two league games, which is very unusual.

"Today [Friday] we played our fourth competition in two and a half months, we're trying to keep the level in every tournament we play, we're trying to do our best and it's difficult mentally to face this amount of competitions in a short space of time.

"But, trust me, our intention is to be at the same level in our league games."

In AmaZulu, Pirates will face a highly motivated team fresh from eliminating the struggling Kaizer Chiefs from the Carling Knockout Cup (CKO) this past weekend. 

Riveiro knows the journey to launch a strong league title race starts on Tuesday night.

"We're now 100 percent focussed on the AmaZulu [match], and personally, my opinion will be shared by every other coach in the world, the league is the most important tournament," he added.

"It doesn't mean other tournaments are not important, like this [Carling Knockout], I think each and every competition has relevance as an opportunity to improve the history of the club.

"But our focus right now is on AmaZulu, Polokwane [City], Cape Town [Spurs] again, etc. because we really want to compete there as well."

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