When is Orlando Pirates’ next battle?
Pirates are in Champions League action soon.
Orlando Pirates have a huge fish to fry in the Champions League when club football returns to our screens. Here are the details.
Pirates face MC Alger next
Pirates will be quietly confident they can stamp their ticket into the Champions League semi-finals. They face the Algerian side MC Alger over two legs in the quarter-finals. The first leg takes place on Tuesday, 01 April at 21:00 in North Africa. Alger is currently in charge of the Algerian Ligue 1 with a seven-point lead at the summit after 20 league outings.
Mbokazi is a future Orlando Pirates captain
5 March 2025 might go down as a big day in the history of the club. 19-year-old Mbekezeli Mbokazi made his Orlando Pirates debut, and we might look back on that as a huge watershed moment. It was a 1-0 win for Pirates and, fittingly, Mbokazi marked his bow with a clean sheet. It’s the first of many, and DStv Diski Challenge [DDC] head coach Joseph Makhanya has played a big role in his rise to prominence. Mbokazi started subsequent matches against SuperSport in the Nedbank Cup (he scored the opener in a 2-2 draw, Pirates eventually prevailed on penalties) and against Stellenbosch in a 0-0 draw. Mbokazi was the Man of the Match in that thrilling cup tie against Matsatsantsa and repeated the trick by earning the accolade in Pirates’ 2-1 win over Sundowns. It’s a result that will breathe new life into their title challenge.
Foster could return to the Premier League at the first time of asking
Lancashire club Burnley paid a fee rising to €11m to sign Foster from Westerlo, and there’s no reason why a host of other Premier League clubs wouldn’t jump at the chance of signing the hard-working South African for around double that at least. Foster scored five goals and provided three assists in 24 top-flight appearances in 2023-2024; 22 were starts. It’s no exaggeration to say he was arguably their best player in a season to end in relegation heartbreak, and to produce those numbers in a side struggling at the basement is a superb achievement.
EPL return for the Clarets?
2024-2025 could end in promotion to the Premier League for Burnley and Foster. They sit third in the English Championship and remain in the hunt for automatic promotion; they’ll earn that honour if they finish the regular season of 46 matches inside the top two places. Otherwise, teams placing third to sixth contest a pair of two-legged semifinals and then a final at Wembley. The former Pirates man scored Bafana’s first goal in their impressive 2-0 win away to Benin on Tuesday.
Will Pirates win this season’s Champions League?
Let us know by leaving a comment below or sending a WhatsApp to 060 011 0211. Also, subscribe to The South African website’s newsletters and follow us on WhatsApp, Facebook, X and Bluesky for the latest news.