CAPE TOWN - Orlando Pirates coach Josef Zinnbauer had high praise for his team’s defensive effort in their 2-0 victory over Cape Town City on Tuesday.
Pirates started the game with a bang through two goals within the first five minutes from Deon Hotto and Vincent Pule and never released their stranglehold on the game from that point.
Their dominance was best illustrated in the fact that Bucs restricted City to four shots on goal in the entire game, despite the visitors controlling 61% of the possession.
Pirates, meanwhile, had 14 strikes and could easily have doubled – if not tripled – their goal tally.
"I think from the first minute until the last minute we were in the game, we had a lot of possibilities in the first half to score, in the second half also, that was unbelievable," Zinnbauer said.
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"But it was a good game, a top performance, a team effort, it was important for us. We had a lot of chances and the game is changing but I say again the defence was top, the offence was top, there was always a solution, the team made a good work against a top team from Cape Town.
“Ben [Motshwari] and [Thabang] Monare in the first half their defensive line was top, also with Happy [Jele] and 'Tyson' [Hlatshwayo] they made a good shifting.
"You see what [Siphesihle] Ndlovu did on the right side, it is not his position, he made a top game, [Paseka] Mako also in defence, they closed the space for Cape Town [City] and Cape Town [City] always search for the space and we closed the space.”
City were not allowed to play their free-flowing football and never hit their stride. Jan Olde Riekerink’s team usually enjoy playing the ball out from the back, through the midfield, who look to unleash the wide men like Surprise Ralani and Craig Martin.
Pirates, though, harassed them in the midfield by dominating the physical exchanges, which never allowed City to build momentum.
“We have players with lots of creativity, which is their strength,” Riekerink said.
“It took a long time for us to find the right pockets, so when you lose the ball, if you have creative attacking players, then you are less organised in defence.
“Pirates meanwhile had two defensive players that play close to the central defenders. That’s a different philosophy because that’s why we score plenty of goals. “They are a perfect pressing team, they executed it very well and we didn’t have space. The second half we created two very good opportunities, if we score one maybe the game is different.
“But the fact that we only created a few chances we didn’t use the right spaces. Credit to Pirates and the pressure they exerted on us, we lost a lot of duels.”
Pirates this weekend head to Botswana to face Jwaneng Galaxy in the CAF Confederation Cup, while City will look to bounce back from their defeat against SuperSport United, who will also be smarting from a shock defeat to Bloemfontein Celtic on Tuesday.