‘Age does not matter at Orlando Pirates’ – Riveiro
Orlando Pirates head coach has just greatly inspired the youth players at the Soweto Giants.
Orlando Pirates head coach Jose Riveiro has explained his confidence decisions to select players like Relebohile Mofokeng and Mohau Nkota in big games.
AGE IS JUST A NUMBER
The Sea Robbers have had Mofokeng and Nkota starting against CR Belzouizdad in the CAF Champions League, as well as the Stellenbosch FC match on Sunday.
According to coach Riveiro, the quality of the performance determines his starting lineups rather than the age of the players.
“From the club perspective, the key, like any other in the world is recruitment, have a good scouting structure in order to have the capacity to accumulate talent in your development, and then from my point, I don’t see players as youngsters,” Riveiro said.
“I don’t see youngsters or experienced players; they are good, or they are not good enough. They are ready or they are not ready. It’s convenient or not convenient for the game, it’s not about when he was born, or whether he is 20, 19, or 22 – it doesn’t make a big difference.
“When the player is ready, he is ready, when the player is talented, he is talented, and that’s the system itself, you play them, or you don’t play them. It’s simple – and people usually talk about taking the risk of playing a young player.
“For me, the risk is when you play a player who is not ready, whether he is 30 or 20, in our case, the boys are showing they are ready and they are capable of surviving in different environments so far. We are happy and we are glad and clearly inspiring more youngsters in our structures to be ready because age is not going to be a problem if they are ready,” concluded the Orlando Pirates mentor.
CAF CHAMPIONS LEAGUE ACTION
Meanwhile, the Soweto giants have a big game coming this weekend. Egyptian giants and 11-time CAF Champions League winners Al Ahly will be at the Orlando Stadium at 15:00 this Saturday.
HOW FAR WILL ORLANDO PIRATES GO IN THE CAF CHAMPIONS LEAGUE?
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