Riveiro makes plea to Orlando Pirates supporters on red-hot Zakhele Lepasa

Jose Riveiro says Zakhele Lepasa’s role for Orlando Pirates is not only about scoring goals and he hopes the club's supporters will notice the amount of work done by the striker when he is not bulging the back of the net.

Lepasa has hit stunning early form in 2023-24 with a hat-trick in Pirates' emphatic 5-0 MTN8 quarterfinal victory over Sekhukhune United at Orlando Stadium on Saturday night making it five goals in two games for the Bafana Bafana striker.

Lepasa, back at Bucs having been sent on loan to SuperSport United last season, scored a brace in Pirates' 4-2 DStv Premiership win against Royal AM on Tuesday.

The forward is the darling of Bucs' faithful right now, but Lepasa has had a long love-hate relationship with the fans who sometimes troll the player on social media.

Speaking after a quarterfinal where Lepasa might easily have scored four goals as he missed a penalty, Riveiro said a striker's role is about much more than just scoring goals.

“I cannot tell our fans what to think or what to do — they are football fans and mature. They watch the games and sometimes they have opinions about what we do,” Riveiro said.

“We try to improve the history of the club every week, we prepare ourselves as best as possible for each game we play.

“Nowadays the roles are not like maybe years ago. The keeper is not only there to save goals, he is there to also help us play better and if sometimes the goalkeeper loses the ball we have to accept it. It's part of the process.

“The striker is not there only to score goals. Years ago, we played straight to the striker, second ball to the second striker, we shot, we scored on rebound.

“Nowadays strikers are doing much more to create the spaces, stretch the field, to fix two or three players in one spot; [and] then [fellow front three players] 'Rele' [Relebohile Mofokeng] and [Monnapule] Saleng can have more space and time on the ball.”

Riveiro said in the modern game strikers are also the first line of defence. The coach feels Lepasa is quite good at supporting the high-pressing game.

“Obviously the fans will always rank the strikers depending on the number of goals they score. But I will invite them to also have a look at the amount of work that the striker is doing on the field to make everybody else play better,” Riveiro said.

“In the pressing, to keep our lines high they are the first ones to start to defend. So, there’s a lot of things in every position that play a role when we decide on who is playing and who is not.

“I’m not going to deny the truth, we all look to the striker as someone who is going to score the goals. So when you can add all the other things on the possibilities of putting the ball at the back of the net, that is perfect.

“But never forget all the other things the players do on field. Because it’s not fair as there will be other positions or players that will be in the same scenarios, missing the goals but it seems that it doesn’t matter.

“If it’s a midfielder or No.10 and he misses a goal, it's unlucky. But if it’s a striker we are a bit more aggressive with them. Everybody must contribute.”