‘Nothing is lost’, says Pirates coach after loss to Sundowns

Orlando Pirates coach Abdeslam Ouaddou has urged his charges to keep a level head, saying despite the loss to Mamelodi Sundowns, there’s still a lot of play for before the end of the season.

This comes after the Brazilians ended the Buccaneers’ 11-game winning run to close the gap between themselves and the log leaders, Pirates, to three points, with the Tshwane giants also having a game in hand.

A first half brace from Brayan León earned the defending league champions a vital 2-1 win in a Betway Premiership match played at a packed FNB Stadium on Wednesday night. Patrick Maswanganyi netted the consolation goal for Pirates in the second half.

Following the defeat, Ouaddou described the encounter as a game of two halves, insisting that the league title race is still wide open.

“I think we had two halves, one where we wanted to be compact and to play on the transition and I think it worked. It worked because we recovered a lot of balls and we created the most effective chances, unfortunately we weren’t efficient in the first half,” Ouaddou told SuperSport TV.

“It’s very hard to come into half-time with 2-0, but I think the boys did well in the second half. We managed to score early. We pushed, but we didn’t manage to score the second goal.

“I can say that Mamelodi Sundowns had the first half, Pirates had the second half but without scoring the second goal, so we are a bit disappointed.

“We still have games, nothing is lost but we have to play till the end,” added the Moroccan.

Ouaddou was delighted with his side’s second half showing and felt that the Buccaneers deserved to walk away with something from the game.

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“I think the approach is the second half because we’re losing 2-0 so we have to change something so we went to the press them a little bit high, something that of course the players knows because we have been doing that since the beginning of the season. And I think they did it well in the second half unfortunately we missed the first half,” commented Ouaddou.