Football coaches in general, rarely come cool, calm, and collected as Orlando Pirates coach, Jose Riveiro. Seeing the Spaniard losing his mind on the dugout is a rare occurrence.
When he first joined
Pirates, he was given the famous ‘plumber’ tag, which was an insult, because
the man would have made a terrible plumber, honestly.
A sailor, now that would
suit him. Imagine calm Riveiro sailing against raging sea waters in the middle
of a terrible storm that threatens to sink his ship and kill thousands aboard. While
everyone else is struck by a mixture of fear and panic, running around
screaming their lungs out, Riveiro would be the only cool head aboard, telling
everyone to calm down because there is actually no danger. I kid you not.
The buccaneers’ ship is not
going through a storm, but it has not been smooth sailing either.
Pirates miss a lot of
chances. If it wasn’t for that, they are one team who would have pushed
Mamelodi Sundowns harder in the race for the league title.
Looking at their stats
makes for some impressive reading.
Pirates average a good 0.69
goals conceded per match in the league. They are third, behind Sundowns and TS
Galaxy when it comes to the goals conceded column in the Dstv premiership,
having let in 18 goals so far.
They create decent goal
scoring chances too! With an average expected goals of 1.57 per match. Their average
shots taken per game in the league is also impressive, with 11.35, but their
conversion rate has been their biggest let down, with 11%.
But the cool, calm, and
collected Riveiro is not frustrated. In his world, all is well.
“Frustration is not the
word,” said Riveiro as quoted by Times Live
“I'm not coming to the games thinking we're
going to win 5-0 and if we're not at 5-0 at halftime I get frustrated. I know
how difficult it is.
“We played a good game against
SuperSport but we only scored one penalty after 70 minutes. We played against
Maritzburg [United] and suddenly [Monnapule] Saleng shoots from nowhere and the
ball is in the net.
“It's a complicated game and you
have to control a lot of things to get a result. But I'm not frustrated because
I know how much it takes.
“We have to work a lot to create
one chance and to make sure that chance is not going to result in a transition
immediately after we have it.
“I think that's one of the keys
in this moment for us, probably the main change in the second part of the
season. No we have the capacity to play more in the half of the opponent and
you do that your probabilities to score increase.”
What Riveiro says makes a
lot of sense, which is another great quality of the man; he knows how to talk a
good game. And he knows his football.
But his calmness! Now that
takes the cake. A great sailor, Jose would become.
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