By Sabelo Seroke
Soweto giants Orlando Pirates became the first team in history to win the MTN8 final three times in a row after they beat Stellenbosch 3-1 at a packed Moses Mabhida Stadium in Durban on Saturday night.
Stellies scored early in the match as Lehlohonolo Mojela, netted 11 minutes of play. The boys from the Western Cape dominated the first half. Even the Orlando Pirates coach didn’t think they’d win when analysing his team’s first half performance. “I didn’t have a feeling in the first half that we can do it,” Riveiro said in a post-match interview.
He was seen running to the changeroom at half time and what he said when he got there must have worked wonders as talisman Monnapule Saleng scored early in the second half to make it 1-1.
It remained 1-1 until the end of the 90 minutes, but there was a suggested four minutes additional time and it was at that point that Tshegofatso Mabasa scored in the 92nd minute to put Pirates in the lead.
There was a controversy in what some feel was a refereeing error by Abongile Tom. There’s belief that Tom had awarded a freekick and yet signalled advantage to Pirates, which saw Mofokeng play a throughball to Mabasa, who made no mistake and suddenly, Pirates was in an unassailable lead.
“Firstly, it’s not a freekick and secondly the ref was talking to the players,” a disappointed Barker said.
From then on Stellenbosch pushed for a stoppage time equaliser, however they were caught on the break as Mabasa turned provider to Mofokeng, who showed composure to seal the game 3-1 in favour of Pirates.
“We have a lot of talent and only because of that is this possible,” said a happy Riveiro.
Pirates took home a cash prize of R10 million.
