Orlando Pirates coach Jose Riveiro says he will rotate his squad for the CAF Champions League preliminary round clash with Comoros team Djabal Club on Saturday.
The Buccaneers are back in the elite continental competition for the first time since the 2019/20 season where they lasted only one round, losing 2-1 on aggregate to Zambia’s Green Eagles.
They were runners-up in the CAF Confederation Cup in 2022 while they have since won the Nedbank Cup and MTN8 under the stewardship of Riveiro.
Bucs have, meanwhile, started the current DStv Premiership season with some extreme results, starting with an opening day loss to Stellenbosch while also thrashing Royal AM 4-2, being held to a 1-1 draw with Chippa United and overturning Sekhukhune United 5-0 in their recent MTN8 quarter-final.
Ahead of the weekend’s game, the head coach explained: “We have the opportunity to refresh the squad, the starting eleven.
“So we need to discuss and decide how much we need to do. As I explained many times, we don’t believe in rotation as a strategy, we believe in rotation when it is a moment to do the rotation when the player needs a rotation.
“For sure we are going to play a different kind of game in a different type of environment and there are going to be a lot of adjustments.”
Pirates have played and beaten Djabal before, in the 2013 edition in the Champions League, winning 9-0 on aggregate in the first round. They then went on to lose to Egyptian giants Al Ahly 3-1 on aggregate in the final that season.
