Cape Town City’s interim coach Diogo Peral has ridiculed the situation where his team will need to wait until the conclusion of the Golden Arrows and SuperSport United fixture after the conclusion of the regular season to have their Betway Premiership fate decided.
City finished on 27 points after a goalless draw against Western Cape neighbours Stellenbosch FC on Saturday at the DHL Stadium. But despite being a point above the relegation zone, they will only know whether they will contest the playoffs after Arrows and SuperSport, who trail City by a point, play 45 minutes of a fixture that was stopped due to loadshedding back in February already.
A MOTM display to celebrate 100 appearances for our Darren Keet in City colours
Popeye joins the 100 club, now the leading appearance-maker among goalkeepers in our history 🔵👏 pic.twitter.com/EqBUwCGCQq
— Cape Town City FC (@CapeTownCityFC) May 25, 2025
“The reason these games are all played at the same time is so that teams don’t get to choose the result they want,” Peral said.
“The very reason those games are to avoid this and then on top of it it’s the two teams that are fighting relegation that get to play against each other.
“So, it’s a bit of a joke actually, but it is what it is and if we start with all the theories and all the negatives, it’s not going to help us in the next game.”
Peral has adopted a pragmatic approach to the unique scenario facing his team and has already instructed his support staff to prepare his team to contest the playoffs.
“The only thing we can do is what’s in our hands and what’s in our hands is to forget about all that and to go and prepare as well as we can, like we’ve been preparing for the last few games we’ve played,” he said.
“We’re planning for the play-offs, watching the opposition we’ll be coming up against, and we’ve already travelled to watch some of their games, so the planning is well on the way already.
“If something else happens, then so be it – great, but we’ll be at training… One day off and then the boys will be back at training [on Monday],”
Peral, though, was not absolving blame for City’s lacklustre performances this season, especially for the club of the stature of the Citizens.
No, I think that this season there was a period in the season where, like you’ve said, I’ve (4:51) been here for a few seasons and what you did see is we’ve been through difficult times before.
“We’ve been through difficult times. And when we lost games at home in the previous seasons, it was always us playing very good football and maybe we were unlucky,” he said.
“So it was the results where you went, you know what, we should have won.
“I thought this season that there were some performances that were disappointing where we let ourselves down. So it is what it is.
“We need to, we need to, there’s nothing we can do now.
“But now we’ve got to forget about what’s going on and we’ve got to get into the playoffs. I think we play enough football to get through these playoffs and I think that’s what’s important now. And then after the season is finished, for sure we’ll go back, we’ll go look, where did we go wrong.”
