Pirates coach Jose ‘Spanish Guitar’ Riveiro hopes to depart from the smooth sailing ship of the Sea Robbers on a high note. Photo: Sipho Siso

Coach Nasreddine Nabi of Chiefs can be down and out, but his rebuilding work of a formidable side is being noticed. Photo: Sipho Siso

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As predicted by Orlando Pirates coach Jose ‘Spanish Guitar’ Riveiro the Mighty Buccaneers collected all three points from the Soweto Derby to keep pressure on table-topping Mamelodi Sundowns as the Betway Premiership draws to a close.

The Spanish Guitar had earlier in a pre-match press conference brushed aside the two recent setbacks suffered by his men in the Caf Champions League and the Betway Premiership, saying that was water under bridge and his men were going into the derby to collect all three points and collect they did as they came from behind to win the derby 2-1 at an FNB Stadium that was packed to the rafters.

Though the win reduces the points from 10 to none, it nevertheless keeps the pressure firmly on Sundowns which is due to play its 24th game tonight [May 3] in Cape Town against the ‘Cape Citizens’ in the form of Cape Town City FC with kick off scheduled for 20H00.

If the ‘Yellow Machine’ can produce another domineering performance against the struggling Cape Citizens, the status quo of a 10-point lead could be restored as one soccer scribe put it, the league is in Sundowns’ hands to lose. Besides the Buccaneers’ 2-1 triumph, May 3’s win means the Bucs has managed to post a two-out-two derby wins this season against AmaKhosi and a third derby awaits in the Nedbank Cup at the Moses Mabhida Stadium in Durban on May 7.

Going by Chiefs’ Nedbank Cup form this season, my money is on Kaizer Chiefs to win the 3 rd Soweto Derby, this time in the Nedbank Cup final. The Soweto Glamour Boys have had an exquisite form in this cup tournament and despatched the league powerhouse, Sundowns in the semi-finals to book a spot in the final, only to find Pirates waiting for them.

Africa’s number one derby was as predicted, a scintillating showpiece of football that was made more tantalising by an early goal from Kaizer Chiefs’ Democratic Republic of Congo striker Glody Makabi Lilepo as early as in the second minute of the game.

This gave the Soweto Glamour Boys early confidence that they could emerge victorious in this leg of the derby and the side kept on piling pressure on the Sea Robbers and could have been two goals up soon after the Lilepo strike.

The Buccaneers too was given a wake-up call and pulled its socks up and started asking questions on the AmaKhosi keeper Bruce Bvuma and they were finally rewarded in the 23 rd minute when gangling Bucs striker Evidence Makgopa outran two Chiefs defenders to bang a powerful shibobo shot past an advancing Bvuma to level the score line.

It was young and talented midfield maestro-cum striker Relebohile Mofokeng who hammered the final nail in the coffin of AmaKhosi, a thing that Mofokeng has mastered and kept doing it in both the local league and the Caf Champions League games at home and abroad.

Pirates won all its away games in the Champions League courtesy of the prolific striking boots of Mofokeng, better known to his peers as the ‘King of Ama-2000’ [which literally means the king of those born in the 21st Century].

If Riveiro emerges triumphant in the Nedbank Cup’s Soweto Derby final at the Moses Mabhida final on May 7, the Spanish Guitar can walk away a proud coach who left the Sea Robbers on a smooth sailing ‘robbery’ ship.