Kickoff (Cape Town)
3 October 2008
The difficulties that Santos posed for Orlando Pirates last season in both league and cup encounters - when they inflicted three consecutive defeats in one year, underlines the task facing the Mighty Buccaneers when they host a Santos side which has yet to taste defeat to Pirates under David Bright, at the Coca-Cola Park on Saturday.
However, an intriguing sub-plot to this story is that Santos' best playermaker over the years, Thembile Kanono has crossed the floor to join Pirates.
He, too, like many players in his position, would love to put one over his former employers and help Pirates register its first victory of the season.
Another interesting sub-plot to this preview is that the last time Pirates defeated Santos was back in 2007, at the same venue where Saturday's game will be played.
Both teams come into this game on the back of indifferent results.
Visitors, Santos were brought down to earth from their 3-0 thumping over Bay United, when Moroka Swallows defeated them by the same margin in front of their home crowd.
Pirates went to Port Elizabeth last week set on collecting maximum points but returned with their tails between their legs and with no points to show for it.
So come Saturday evening, Coca-Cola Park will play host to two wounded sides, who are in desperate need for maximum points.
Pirates are currently lying at the bottom of the table having only collected one point after three games played, while Santos are currently in thirteenth place, on three points after the same number of games played.
The two sides have met twenty-two times since Santos gained promotion to the Premier League in 1998, and in those games, Pirates has won 10 times; Santos five times; and the rest of the games have been drawn. During this period a total of 70 goals were scored, 42 of which belong to Pirates.
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