Jose Riveiro sings Orlando Pirates debutant Relebohile Ratomo’s praises

Ratomo has been one of the revelations in the PSL Reserve League this season and, like Mamelodi Sundowns and South African U17 starlet Siyabonga Mabena, is also a product of the School of Excellence.

The 17-year-old forced the own goal off Elias Pelembe, and Riveiro says Ratomo deserved his game time.

"He's having his development process as a youngster and as a young player that he is. If I play Rele in the starting 11, understand how important the game is or was for us. I'm not here to give chances, I'm here to win games, help the team to win games and Rele was in the field to help us to win the game," Riveiro said.

Despite seeing his team dropping two valuable points that could have gone a long way towards securing the second CAF Champions League spot, Riveiro was content with the efforts of his charges.

Bucs wasted several clearcut chances, especially in the first half, with Riveiro having made seven changes to his starting line-up – understandably in anticipation of the Nedbank Cup Soweto Derby against arch-rivals Kaizer Chiefs on Saturday.

"It's easier to say I'm happy with the performance when you win. Even sometimes it's not totally true but today they did everything. Understanding the difficulties of the matter when you change seven players in the starting 11. I said before it's difficult to perform during the 90 minutes. We play just 70 hours before the kick-off, and we had a very intense game against TS Galaxy. We knew that at some point today we are going to feel it, also the fatigue but it's an unusual schedule and I think it was an unusual game."