Marked for Mpho Padime
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Match1 Dec 2029
Rarely has this fixture seen a display like it: 3‑0 against Free State Stars, and it could have been more.
Squad3 Dec 2029
3 goals in one afternoon from one man. The other players were also present, a witness confirmed.
Match3 Dec 2029
Position 3 and 35 points on the board. Nobody at the ground will say the word out loud yet, and everybody at the ground is thinking it.
The dugout3 Dec 2029
“I was told what my role would be, and I signed on that basis. It has not happened.” A grievance with a date attached is the hardest kind to settle.
Squad3 Dec 2029
14 goals and a season average of 7.32. Form like that gets noticed well beyond this town.
Squad3 Dec 2029
Cassius Mailula and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Player ratings3 Dec 2029
Marked 9.97 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
Squad3 Dec 2029
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Relebohile Mofokeng was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Steady
Match11 Jun 2029
Position 3 and 66 points on the board. Nobody at the ground will say the word out loud yet, and everybody at the ground is thinking it.
Market11 Jun 2029
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Orlando Pirates they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Market11 Jun 2029
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at Orlando Pirates heard it as anything else.
Boardroom11 Jun 2029
There is no worse way to lose a footballer. Falakhe Tshanini has pre-agreed a move away, which means every appearance between now and June is made by a man the club can no longer sell, and somebody upstairs will be asked why the contract was allowed to get here.
Squad11 Jun 2029
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Orlando Pirates this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad11 Jun 2029
A move Sebastián Berbesi would have made for nothing
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Sebastián Berbesi is living that version at Orlando Pirates, and it tends to show in the first month.
Squad11 Jun 2029
Words at Orlando Pirates training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Thalente Mbatha is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
Transfer targets11 Jun 2029
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Bidvest Wits have kept their man, and Orlando Pirates go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Squad11 Dec 2028
A knee injury of the worst kind for Andre de Jong
30 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Orlando Pirates lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Match9 Dec 2028
4‑1, and the margin flattered nobody — it could have carried another goal or two without complaint. Afternoons like this are why people keep coming.
Squad11 Dec 2028
The match ball belongs to Ramahlwe Mkhize, whose 3 goals turned a difficult afternoon into a procession.
Match9 Dec 2028
Momentum is a hard thing to buy and an easy thing to lose, and right now Orlando Pirates have 4 straight wins of it.
Market11 Dec 2028
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Orlando Pirates is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Squad11 Dec 2028
A season average of 7.35 with 15 goals behind it. Opponents have started planning around him, which is the sincerest compliment football pays.
Squad11 Dec 2028
Cassius Mailula and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Player ratings11 Dec 2028
There is a version of this player everybody suspected was in there, and on this evidence it is. 9.63, and no argument anywhere in the ground.
The terraces11 Dec 2028
The crowd has taken to Mpho Padime
At 21 he is being sung about by people twice his age, which is an affection a signing has to earn over years and a local kid gets for turning up. It is also the hardest thing in football to live up to.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Market14 Aug 2028
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around Orlando Pirates people have started saying his name in the past tense.
Market14 Aug 2028
Only the photograph left for Thato Mabena
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Thato Mabena will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Orlando Pirates the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Match12 Aug 2028
Momentum is a hard thing to buy and an easy thing to lose, and right now Orlando Pirates have 3 straight wins of it.
Squad14 Aug 2028
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Mpho Padime is 21, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Squad14 Aug 2028
Thalente Mbatha was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Squad14 Aug 2028
At 27 the improving is meant to be over, and it is not: 4 points better than a year ago. It happens to the ones who take the boring parts seriously.
Player ratings14 Aug 2028
A performance of 8.72 does not come along often, and when it does the rest of the team becomes scenery. He was magnificent.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market17 Jul 2028
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. Orlando Pirates have lost him in all but the paperwork.
Market17 Jul 2028
The shirt still fits. Monnapule Saleng is back at Orlando Pirates, and half the ground remembers him in these colours already. Some signings need selling to the town; this one sold itself.
Market17 Jul 2028
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Orlando Pirates can pretend not to have heard.
Market17 Jul 2028
Thato Mabena has one foot out of the door
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Orlando Pirates they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Squad17 Jul 2028
Cassius Mailula was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Squad17 Jul 2028
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Mpho Padime is 21, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Squad17 Jul 2028
At 27 the improving is meant to be over. It is not: 3 points better than the mark taken at the start of the year, which is the sort of thing that happens to players who take the boring parts of the job seriously.
Squad17 Jul 2028
“The easiest signature of my career.” Lebone Seema and Orlando Pirates agree another 3 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
The terraces17 Jul 2028
The town asked, and Orlando Pirates paid $1.4M
Monnapule Saleng was the name on every phone-in, and the club has gone and signed him for $1.4M. For one week the board can do no wrong, which is a week most boards never get.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market12 Jun 2028
$2.2M. No player has ever cost Orlando Pirates more, and expectation arrives with him.
Transfer targets12 Jun 2028
The clubs have shaken hands with Ajax Cape Town; the player has not yet. Personal terms are next, and personal terms are where more deals die than anybody prints.
Market12 Jun 2028
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and University of Pretoria waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Orlando Pirates is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
Match12 Jun 2028
Position 3 and 69 points on the board. Nobody at the ground will say the word out loud yet, and everybody at the ground is thinking it.
Market12 Jun 2028
The bid was some way short and Orlando Pirates did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Market12 Jun 2028
Orlando Pirates spend $1.3M to raise the standard
This is not cover and nobody is pretending it is. $1.3M has been paid because Gomolemo Kekana is straightforwardly better than what was already here, and the club has decided to stop waiting.
Squad12 Jun 2028
Cassius Mailula and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
The terraces12 Jun 2028
The town asked, and Orlando Pirates paid $2.2M
Solly Khunyedi was the name on every phone-in, and the club has gone and signed him for $2.2M. For one week the board can do no wrong, which is a week most boards never get.
Squad12 Jun 2028
Words at Orlando Pirates training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Deon Hotto is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.