Orlando Pirates form not a factor - Miguel Cardoso

The Buccaneers reached the last four after beating Polokwane City but have since suffered back-to-back defeats in the Betway Premiership, giving new coach Abdeslam Ouaddou an early taste of the pressures from the fanbase.

"It's not really something I relate with regarding the past, I never look at the past, I just want to write the future and live in the present in order to write the future. I was not even here in South Africa when cups were playing between the teams, it's the first time we're gonna play each other on a cup match,” Cardoso said.

“And I believe that as I said, these kinds of matches put us in another dimension and the team that maybe better or worse or the same level in the match before has nothing to do with what happens in these matches. 

“It's a story that is completely different, there's a lot of emotionality behind, there's a lot of ambiance around, there's a lot of players that on these matches show themselves in levels that before were not there. 

“I think what is important is that the team that wants to get the result must on these matches really show a different standard and go do the best as possible as they can."

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The Portuguese mentor believes they have to be at their elite best to make the final. 

"In these two matches, we need not to play one but two very competitive matches with the intention, to be very competitive so that we can win more duels, we can have more balls,” the coach added. 

“We can find more spaces to play, we can aggress [be aggressive] the opponent, we can cope with aggressions that we're gonna suffer for sure because the game as I said before will have different moments.

“And then the level of awareness to prevent suffering goals and the level of awareness that allows us also during the right moments also to make ours. It will be for sure, two beautiful games with a lot of emotions to deal with. 

“I hope we all and the people around, and the players and the coaches and the management and everybody and the referees also leave the right emotions that must be in these kinds of games. So, we give South Africa fantastic football."