Orlando Pirates head coach Jose Riveiro has opened up on having fewer rest days than Kaizer Chiefs ahead of the Nedbank Cup semi-final Soweto derby over the weekend.
Pirates' six-game winning run in the league was halted after they made seven changes with one eye in the Soweto derby against Chiefs and were held to a 1-1 draw by Royal AM on Wednesday afternoon.
Riveiro says they do not have the "periodization" in between games as the tough schedule has not allowed them to have at least a minimum of three days to rest.
"There's no periodization when you don't have enough time to rest, physiological studies says that you need three days minimum in between games, we didn't get that," Riveiro said in a press conference after their draw against Thwihli Thwahla.
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"But it's not my business, I don't decide when we play and where we play. We just try to do our best in order to guarantee that we can compete in every game.
"We cannot guarantee that we gonna win every game but guarantee that we can compete, we did it (against Royal AM) I'm sure, we gonna do it again in 70 hours or less and that's where our mind is," he said.
Chiefs will have extra days to rest after they played on Monday afternoon in their loss against Swallows while Pirates played two days later.
The Spanish coach indicated that he's aware of the "disadvantage" they have in that regard and they will have to be "smart" to balance it out.
"We gonna be disappointed for a couple of hours with the result but after that we have to think about the recovery protocols, all the things that we can do that we can compete with the opponent (Chiefs) who is gonna get two or three more days than us to rest," he continued.
"And we have to be smart, use every strategy to make sure that we can balance that disadvantage.
"Now you will say I said we're at a disadvantage but I said already, sorry," he added.
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