The Orlando Pirates Chronicle
Squad23 Nov 2026
Deon Hotto pulls a muscle — 15 days out
The injury that keeps coming back, keeps being rushed back from, and quietly costs more careers than the dramatic ones. 15 days is the estimate; the honest figure depends on whether anybody is patient.
Squad23 Nov 2026
A falling-out at Orlando Pirates
Yanela Mbuthuma and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Match21 Nov 2026
A bad afternoon for Orlando Pirates against Ajax Cape Town
0‑1 to Ajax Cape Town, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
The dugout23 Nov 2026
Makhehleni Makhaula gets it from the manager
“Nobody here is above being told.” It was not said with a name attached, but the dressing room can count, and so can everybody who was listening.
The dugout23 Nov 2026
The view from the dugout
“We will look at it, we will learn from it, and we go again.” The three sentences every manager keeps for a 0‑1 defeat, delivered by Keagan Williams to a room that had heard them before.
The dugout23 Nov 2026
Tshepang Moremi knocks on the manager’s door
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Tshepang Moremi trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Squad23 Nov 2026
Words at Orlando Pirates training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ntando Ngcobo 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.
Player ratings23 Nov 2026
Tshepang Moremi runs at them all day
Successful dribbles: 13. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Market23 Nov 2026
The Evidence Makgopa question follows Orlando Pirates around
Every press conference now starts and ends the same way: with Evidence Makgopa’s future. The manager has run out of new ways to say nothing.
In brief
- Player ratings Yanela Mbuthuma keeps on missing
- The dugout Makhehleni Makhaula left out for tactical reasons at Orlando Pirates
- Squad The shirt belongs to Masindi Nemtajela now