Orlando Pirates 2 City 0

The club got their pre-season underway this afternoon with a lethargic defeat in the opening match of the Vodacom Challenge in Polokwane. An experimental side, including new backup goalkeeper Stuart Taylor, youth team captain Ben Mee, and promising winger Vladimir Weiss, huffed and puffed without ever really threatening to score.

Sadly for fans, technical difficulties robbed us of the first half-hour or so, pictures finally coming through shortly after the Pirates had taken the lead with a 36th-minute Lucas Thwala penalty. City, playing a straightforward 4-4-2 with Petrov & Weiss wide, Craig Bellamy & Valeri Bojnov upfront and with the returning Michael Johnson partnering Stevie Ireland in the middle, did up the ante, Johnson spraying passes upfield to utilise the pace of Bellamy, whose hard work nearly paid off shortly after the opener, cutting in from the left and laying off for Bojinov who forced a good save from the 'keeper with a powerful half-volley.

Before the break, having just seen Craig Bellamy booked for bad language, we worked another good move down our left, Garrido overlapping Petrov, whipping in a good cross only for the Boj to head wide from all of three yards. Boj followed Bellamy into the book soon after.

Changes were made at half-time, Johnson making way for Javan Vidal, who slotted in at right-back, with Pablo Zabaleta moving forward into a central midfield role, and Benjani replacing Bellamy. It didn't really alter much, we still had enough possession without anything really clicking in the final third. Petrov saw plenty of the ball without any end product, several crosses and a couple of free-kicks which came to nothing, one blazed well over, another straight at the goalkeeper. Weiss looked a bit more likely to create something, especially when sticking to the right, and gave their full-back a run for his money.

In the 55th minute Orlando went 2-0 up, a freak goal, really, and one that Taylor could've done little about. From around thirty yards from goal their left-winger, Mongala, looped a ball into the net with what seemed neither a short nor a cross. The game was pretty much over then, but i'm not sure Given or anyone else would've had a better chance of keeping it out, and Taylor did go on to make a couple of good saves afterwards.

With twenty minutes to go City made a double change, Caicedo and de Jong replacing Bojinov and Ireland. We did seem to slightly improve on going two down, but little exciting happened. Benjani worked hard, to be fair to him, didn't stop running, but he couldn't get on the end of anything. He was always looking for the ball, though, and dragging defenders out wide, so if we're looking for straws to clutch at we could call that a plus, i suppose, not that i think he's good enough to win his place back. The Pirates could and should've gone three up late on, hitting the post with only Taylor to beat before Ben Haim's robust challenge prevented them scoring from the rebound.

Quite a deflating performance then, but we need to bear in mind that this was only our second game of the summer, and the side was largely reserves and academy players. Encouraging to see Johnno back, though, and Weiss looked tricky. Those things aside, there wasn't too much to write home about.

Team:
Taylor, Zabaleta, Garrido, Mee, Ben Haim, Johnson (Vidal 45) , Weiss, Ireland (de Jong 62), Bojinov (Caicedo 62), Bellamy (Benjani 45) , Petrov