Orlando Pirates coach Josef Zinnbauer says the pressure is on Raja Casablanca ahead of Sunday's Caf Confederation Cup, quarter-final second leg match at Stade Mohamed V.
After Raja grabbed an important away goal when they held Pirates 1-1 in the first leg at Orlando Stadium, it looked like the Buccaneers made life difficult for themselves going into the away leg.
But Zinnbauer believes they are a “big team” and stand a good chance of progressing further in this tournament and are already “looking forward to the semi-finals".
“Looking forward to tomorrow [Sunday] and we are ready for the game,” Zinnbauer told the media.
“We had a good game and yes we missed a lot of good chances but we know it is a different game now. It is a home game for Casablanca now and they are a team which is very strong at home.
Next Match
"Before the first game, we did not have 100 percent information about Casablanca. But now we have real information for this game.
“We are ready for this game. We respect the opponents, they are a big club and we are aware of what they can do. We expect high pressure and but we have a chance, we saw it in the last game at home.“We have a chance, we came here not as a small team. We are also a big club. We know we have the quality, we can score.
"It will not be so easy for Casablanca if we score, they are at home and they are under pressure. We are looking forward to the semi-finals, that is the reason why we are here.”
The first leg saw the referee grabbing headlines for the manner in which he handled the match.
The officiating attracted criticism from both Zinnbauer as well as Raja who went on to file a complaint with Caf as they felt the refereeing influenced the outcome of the game.
“I hope tomorrow [Sunday] the referee will not be making mistakes so that at the end of the day we don’t talk about what he missed or what he did wrong,” continued Zinnbauer.
“What is always important in football, a clear [refereeing] structure will make a good game and the better team has to win the game and not discussing about the referees.
“We cannot speak about the referees. We have it in our hands and the opponents in their hands so let's play and we hope we will have a neutral referee who will not be making mistakes.”
