Down, but definitely not out. That was the spirit inside the Orlando Pirates dressing-room following their 2-1 CAF Confederation Cup loss at home to Zamalek at the weekend.
And coach Eric Tinkler was quick to point out that the Buccaneers were still very much in the running for a semi-final spot of the continent’s secondary club competition, standing as they are in second spot behind the Egyptian giants with four matches still to go.
“It’s not the end of the world,” Tinkler said during his post-match conference. “We’re still second because the other two teams drew. What’s important is that we go to CS Sfaxien and win there. Unfortunately we lost today (Saturday) because the performance was not our best. I don’t think we applied everything we practised ahead of this game.
“Obviously, I am disappointed. I think we probably deserved a little bit more, but I’m not saying we deserved to win the game but a draw would have probably been a fair result.”
For that to have happened though, Pirates needed to have taken the chances they had in the first half. If they had used those opportunities, they could have killed the match off as a contest. But Thamsanqa Gabuza failed to score from close range in the fourth minute as he rattled his shot against the post before Sifiso Myeni wasted an opportunity.
Those failures allowed Zamalek to remain in the game and the Egyptians returned from the half-time break a much improved side and dominated proceedings. Incredibly though, it was Pirates who scored first via substitute Lehlohonolo Majoro.
They failed to protect that lead though and some slack defending allowed the visitors to equalise via a thunderous strike from Yusuf Maaoraf.
Late in the game, Pirates again defended poorly and were duly punished when substitute Mustapha Fathi slotted home the winner with a brilliantly curled shot from inside the box.
While admitting that his team could have done better, Tinkler acknowledged they lost to the better side.
“We were playing against a team that has won the Champions League five times. What we must take from this result is the experience. We must learn a little bit of what they do. When we have the lead we need to play with a little more intelligence and be more focused in defending it. We must not concede goals from the kind of areas we did.”
And so the Pirates coach and his technical team will analyse the tape of Saturday’s match and work on rectifying their mistakes ahead of their trip to Tunisia where they will face a Sfaxien side desperate for their first win of the campaign.
“This loss is a wake-up call. We’d been playing well and getting positive results but at this level you can’t rest on your laurels. I don’t think Sfaxien will be much different to Zamalek in terms of style; they will be very organised and tactically disciplined so we’ve got to learn from our mistakes.” - The Star