Cape Town City Interim Coach Muhsin Ertugral celebrates after City beat Orlando Pirates at DHL Stadium. Picture: Ayanda Ndamane, Independent Newspapers
Herman Gibbs
Cape Town City’s volatile mixture of a Turkish coach and a Venezuelan winger proved to be Orlando Pirates’ undoing in the Mother City on Wednesday night.
Armed with the game-plan of their Turkish coach Muhsin Ertugral and the predatory skills of Venezuelan winger Darwin Gonzalez, City claimed a 1-0 win over high-riding Pirates in their Premiership clash.
It was the second time in four days that the Ertugral-Gonzalez combination triumphed over visiting Sowetans.On Sunday, Kaizer Chiefs suffered defeat by the same margin at the same venue.
Afterwards, Pirates’ Spanish-born coach Jose Riveiro was dumbstruck by the outcome.
When last season’s ‘PSL Referee of the Year’ Sikhumbuzo Gaza blew the final whistle, the crowd of 21,000 would also have wondered how Pirates lost a match they controlled for most of the way.
On the back of their 59% possession advantage, Pirates were 14-7 ahead on the shots on goal count. Overall, they made 73 final third entries against 33 by City.
These statistics contributed to Riveiro’s shock.
“It is quite difficult to explain the final result. I think the difference between the two teams was too big this time, and I say that with all the respect for the game of Cape Town City,” Riveiro said afterwards.
“It’s difficult to explain how we lost this game, but that is how it happened. This is football. City managed to put one ball in the net. We didn’t, but I think we gave a complete performance.”
Apart from the wasted goal-scoring opportunities, Pirates twice hit the woodwork, as well as a missed penalty.
Patrick Maswanganyi fluffed his spot-kick attempt in the 70th minute after Gaza harshly ruled that City’s Tshegofatso Nyama fouled him in the penalty area.
Maswanganyi, together with Relebohile Mofokeng, was one of the big drawcards for the match which strangely attracted a bigger crowd at the Cape Town Stadium than the Kaizer Chiefs match last Sunday.
Pirates have never been a bigger drawcard in the Cape, but they are playing an entertaining brand of soccer, and are serious challengers for the Premiership.
Minutes after this costly miss, City scored and held on to win the match.
“We did everything to win the match. There is not much that you can do now, so we move on to the next one,” said Riveiro.
“I think it’s pure bad luck if you look at how they scored. It is something not normal, but like I said, we were Pirates tonight.
“We played the football that we’ve been playing before. There were other games we played that we didn’t play at this level, but we got the results. Today, we couldn’t make it. Now we turn our heads to the next one – today is gone.”
Pirates’ next match will be on Sunday at the Orlando Stadium against Algeria’s CR Belouizdad, who enjoyed a shock win over CAF’s ‘Club of the Century’ Al Ahly last week.
This defeat ended Al Ahly’s unbeaten run, and sets up a thrilling finale to the group stage, with all four teams still in contention for qualification.
This outcome left Pirates in the driving seat in the Champions League Group C standings.
Pirates only need to win one of their remaining two games to reach the play-offs, while a victory over CR Belouizdad on Sunday will secure a play-off berth.
Pirates’ final Group C match will be against Al Ahly in Egypt.
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