From our football correspondent
Triumph
Market31 Aug 2026
“I have given everything here and I need a new challenge.” The request is formal, and the relationship will never be quite the same again.
Player ratings31 Aug 2026
Successful dribbles: 30. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Transfer targets31 Aug 2026
$8.3M on the table at Oxford United. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
Market31 Aug 2026
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.
Player ratings31 Aug 2026
Relebohile Mofokeng, 21, plays like he has been here for years — 8.39
A mark of 8.39 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 21-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
Transfer targets31 Aug 2026
Orlando Pirates asked and Botev Plovdiv said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Player ratings31 Aug 2026
Up for the corner, and Thalente Mbatha delivers — 7.88
Centre-halves are allowed forward twice a season and are judged on what they do when they get there. Thalente Mbatha scored, was marked 7.88, and got back before anybody noticed he had gone.
Squad31 Aug 2026
A muscle injury sidelines Evidence Makgopa for 15 days
Nobody makes a documentary about a hamstring and everybody in the game fears one. Orlando Pirates will be careful with the return date, because the second one is always worse than the first.
Transfer targets31 Aug 2026
$570.0K on the table at Kaizer Chiefs. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Market24 Aug 2026
Sihle Nduli hands in a written request
“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.
Market24 Aug 2026
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.
Player ratings24 Aug 2026
The hardest thing about being 21 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Relebohile Mofokeng did not need any: 8.11, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
Market24 Aug 2026
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.
Match22 Aug 2026
2‑3 to Golden Arrows, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Deon Hotto was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Squad24 Aug 2026
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.
Market24 Aug 2026
Add another name to the list: Black Aces have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Kabelo Moagi. The answer from Orlando Pirates has not changed — yet.
Player ratings24 Aug 2026
Ninety minutes of Thalente Mbatha at his very best
Marked 8.02. Players have careers without a single afternoon like this in them, and he has just had one in front of everybody at Orlando Pirates.
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Market17 Aug 2026
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 Aug 2026
The offer from RKC Waalwijk for Relebohile Mofokeng was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Deon Hotto falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Patrick Maswanganyi 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.
Transfer targets17 Aug 2026
The approach was made and the answer came back in a sentence. There is no number on the table because there was no number that would have been enough.
Player ratings17 Aug 2026
There is a version of this player everybody suspected was in there, and on this evidence it is. 8.40, and no argument anywhere in the ground.
The dugout17 Aug 2026
The view from the dugout
“We controlled it. There were spells I did not like and we will look at them, but the group showed me something.” Teboho Erasmus, on a 1‑0 win that he was already picking apart on the walk to the press room.
Looking ahead17 Aug 2026
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Deon Hotto’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and Orlando Pirates needing him to play as if none of it matters.
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Player ratings10 Aug 2026
Two goals and a mark of 8.52 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Market10 Aug 2026
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.
Market10 Aug 2026
“I listened, I thought about it, and I am staying. That is the whole story.” The clubs had agreed a fee. Cemran Dansin had not agreed to go, which turned out to be the part that mattered.
Player ratings10 Aug 2026
Relebohile Mofokeng, 21, plays like he has been here for years — 7.81
A mark of 7.81 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 21-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
Player ratings10 Aug 2026
At 34 every good afternoon gets called a throwback, and this one was: 7.98, and nobody on the pitch better.
Squad10 Aug 2026
“The easiest signature of my career.” Oswin Appollis and Orlando Pirates agree another 3 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Squad10 Aug 2026
Patrick Maswanganyi and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad3 Aug 2026
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Deon Hotto commits to Orlando Pirates for another 2 years.
Market3 Aug 2026
Add another name to the list: Erzurumspor have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Cemran Dansin. The answer from Orlando Pirates has not changed — yet.
Squad3 Aug 2026
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.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Patrick Maswanganyi 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.
Market3 Aug 2026
No place for Sihle Nduli in the plan
“The manager did not use many words, and he did not need to.” Sihle Nduli has his answer from Orlando Pirates; what he does with it is the next window’s story.
Market3 Aug 2026
“There is a gap, and pretending there is not helps nobody.” Neither side has moved, and the calendar is working for exactly one of them.
Transfer targets3 Aug 2026
A loan enquiry to Cortulua: cover, or a look at somebody the club cannot afford to buy yet. Either way the answer will come back inside the week.
The dugout3 Aug 2026
Oswin Appollis 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 Oswin Appollis trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Oswin Appollis wants to know why he earns less
Numbers do not stay secret in a dressing room. He is not asking for more than he is worth; he is asking why somebody beside him is worth more, and Orlando Pirates have no good answer.