Orlando Pirates legend Tebogo Moloi, who has previously served as the club's assistant coach under different tacticians, has revealed the reasons behind their loss to Al Ahly in the 2013 CAF Champions League final.
The 1995 winners of the prestigious tournament are set to face the Egyptian giants once again this weekend in Orlando, in what promises to be a nail-biting encounter.
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Last Sunday, Pirates suffered their first defeat of the league season, losing 1-0 to Stellenbosch FC.
"There is no other South African team that faced as many difficult opponents on their path to the final as we did that year," Moloi opens up to KickOff.com.
"To qualify for the group stages, we had to defeat TP Mazembe, who were awarded three penalties. Remarkably, Senzo Meyiwa saved all of them, two of which the referee ordered to be retaken.
"We lost to Al Ahly because we didn't have the core strength of our team."
At the time, Moloi was serving as assistant to Roger De Sa as they lost the two-legged final to Al Ahly.
"The first match in the group stages was against Al Ahly, and we beat them by four goals. In the second game, we faced Zamalek in Orlando, winning that match by three goals. We also played against AS Vita.
"In the knockout stages, we had to compete against Esperance to reach the final. In the first leg of the cup final held in Orlando, we drew 1-1. However, we lost 2-0 in Egypt, primarily because we were missing several key players."
The former midfield man continued, "We didn't have the spine of our team. Siyabonga Sangweni was absent, Andile Jali, our most influential player, was missing, and Happy Jele was also not there. We were up against seven players from the Egyptian national team who were with Al Ahly at that time.
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"We were fortunate to make it that far though, especially since very few of us had traveled that route before.
"I was the assistant coach when we lost to CS Sfaxien in the semi-finals in Tunisia. Losing those three players due to yellow cards earlier in the tournament is what ultimately cost us in the final," he explains.