Orlando Pirates coach unbothered by fluid nature of expectations

The Buccaneers go into the clash on the back of four successive defeats, including being knocked out of the CAF Champions League last weekend.

Opinions on where the Soweto giants are getting things wrong differ, but Riveiro insists he remains focused on the job at hand.

"We try to approach the weeks with the same intention which is to help our players to win games, to win championships. We have an opportunity very soon and that's the intention. So, it was not about us," Riveiro said.

Recently Riveiro weighed in on the applause he’d received following his maiden season at Pirates a year ago – winning two cup competitions and finishing second behind Sundowns in the DStv Premiership.

Asked how a coach in his hot seat handles erratic sentiments, the Spaniard offered clarity to his earlier remarks. 

"My opinion was about the media world, the media environment, the things that you like to talk about. How quickly you change your opinions depending on one or two results. How quickly you change your opinions depending on if one player scores two goals and then he doesn't score in the next three games. It's you [the media], I was not talking about myself," Riveiro added.

Riveiro appears to have mastered the art to shut out the outside noise where there’s a habit to nitpick on “the last result” instead of what Pirates have achieved as a group during his tenure so far.

"If we cannot do it, if I couldn't make it possible to be focused every week in what's coming then it's because I shouldn't be where I am. I was talking about the parallel reality that you try to build around the teams and around the last result, always the last result."