Orlando Pirates captain Innocent Maela says he and his teammates are determined to overturn their one-goal deficit in their African Champions League tie and go on and book a place in the group phase.
CURRENT FORM
Pirates host Botswana’s Jwaneng Galaxy in the second leg of their second round tie at the Orlando Stadium on Frtiday, trailing by a goal after the first leg in Gaborone two weeks ago.
The winner will go into the lucrative group phase, which kicks off in November.
“From the players’ perspective, it will mean everything for us to find ourselves in the group stages so that we can be able to compete with the best the continent has to offer,” Maela told a pre-match press conference on Thursday.
“That is what we want, that is our ambition as the group. We have an opportunity again to go out there to perform well and make sure that we will get the desired results.”
Maela said assertions that Pirates had proven complacent in the first leg in Gaborone were false.
“No, not at all. We don't have that in our club and in our squad.
He also said Pirates were not surprised by the stout opponent they were up against.
“Not at all because it's the Champions League match. We expected a tough match, a very competitive match, a very tactical match. And there is what we got. So, I don't think we went there with the mindset of being complacent, taking it easy thinking that you're going to win. No, not at all. Because if you have that mindset, then you'll have problems. So we went there with our focus, with our preparations spot on. Unfortunately, the result didn’t favour of us. But I believe we played really, really well and tomorrow there's another opportunity to get things right,” the skipper added.
Pirates last competed in the group phase in 2019 and when they were last in the Champions League lost embarrassingly at the first hurdle to Zambia’s Green Eagles.