Jose Riveiro’s first public remarks after hoisting the Betway Premiership trophy were not a celebration of tactical dominance but a defensive confession of a team that stumbled across the finish line. The Orlando Pirates head coach, who had been conspicuously silent during the final weeks of the title race, finally broke his silence with a litany of excuses that painted his champions as fortunate survivors rather than deserving kings. His admission that the squad “had to find ways to win ugly” and that “results mattered more than performances” confirms what many of us saw from the stands: this was a reactive, fragile side that never commanded the league on its own terms. Riveiro’s words were a white flag of tactical insecurity.
The evidence was plastered across the season’s defining moments. Orlando Pirates won the league not through a cohesive system but through individual heroics—Monnapule Saleng’s solo runs against Richards Bay, a last-minute Sipho Chaine penalty save at SuperSport United, and Evidence Makgopa’s scrappy header to steal three points against a relegation-threatened Cape Town Spurs. While Mamelodi Sundowns, under Rulani Mokwena last year, dictated play with positional fluidity and high pressing, Riveiro’s Pirates were often reduced to a counter-punching, set-piece-dependent outfit. Their double over Kaizer Chiefs was more about Amakhosi’s ineptitude than any tactical blueprint. The fact that Riveiro’s post-coronation comments focused on “character” and “grit” rather than patterns of play or tactical