I'm a lucky coach: Riveiro on Bucs squad ahead of crunch final against Sundowns

While his counterpart at Mamelodi Sundowns sweats about the availability of ace attacker Lucas Ribeiro Costa for Saturday's MTN8 final in Durban, Orlando Pirates coach Jose Riveiro highlighted his many options.

Since joining Sundowns from Belgian club SK Bereven at the start of the season, the 24-year-old Costa has scored nine goals in 11 matches (all competitions) for his new team. 

But the Brazilian striker's start in the final against Pirates is in serious doubt after he picked up an injury against the team in a DStv Premiership match a fortnight ago.

While Rulani Mokwena awaits good news regarding Costa's fitness, Riveiro spoke this week about his delight with his squad, despite the club losing four matches in the run-up to the final.

"I have many options and many players available," he said of the Bucs team he can play on Saturday in a match in which he will try to defend the first trophy he won after arriving in South Africa last year.

"We have a big squad not only in terms of the numbers but in quality. It's complicated sometimes. You can imagine if you have to select the starting XI out of this squad. It's always a difficult task, but at the same time it's difficult to make a mistake because they're all good.

"When they are on the field it's because they're fit, ready and prepared. I'm a lucky coach to have this kind of material in my hands, so I can't complain." 

Riveiro added that Saturday's final will be difficult to predict because the teams are familiar with each other.

"I think both teams know each other very well," said the Spaniard.

"There's big respect between us and that means we both are spending time analysing each other, trying to understand what both teams are doing.

"It's nice to play against Sundowns because it's a team that is asking many different questions during the game, as we do. So I think it's also attractive for them to play Pirates.

"It's the first time we play them in the final [since he arrived last season] and that's going to make it a little bit of difference in terms of approaches maybe. I don't know. We'll see.

"Let's see on Saturday what kind of teams we find there. We've never seen them in the final, so it's going to be something different. We don't know exactly how the teams are going to behave."

Pirates lost 1-0 at home in the league against Sundowns two weeks ago, but that Riveiro's team beat the Brazilians 3-0 on their way to winning the trophy last season may count in their favour.