By The Numbers: Pirates win Carling Knockout Cup

Orlando Pirates secured the 2025 Carling Knockout on Saturday night, following a narrow 1-0 win over Marumo Gallants in the final that extended into extra time. The decisive moment came when a scrappy effort from Relebohile Mofokeng was bundled over the line amidst a sea of bodies in the box. The result gave Pirates, and their new coach Abdeslam Ouaddou, a second knockout trophy of the season, having won the MTN8 just three months ago. Likewise, that final also went into extra time, and the Bucaneers needed 120 minutes to record the victory, underscoring a culture of resilience and never-say-die attitude by the club. By The Numbers is a statistical review of the weekend.

An elusive trophy finally captured

This was Pirates’ third final of the 2025 calendar year, and they’d won one of the two. A loss here would have reawakened a narrative of stumbling at the final hurdle, following the Nedbank Cup disappointment in May. And, based on their history in this Cup, a loss was far from impoolausibe. The League Cup, in all its guises and sponsorships, has been a rather elusive trophy for the club. The tournament, which was launched in 1982 has been sponsored by Datsun (2 editions), JPS (8 times), Rothmans (4), Coke (10 times), Telkom (14 times) and lately Carling (3 times). Across its 45-year history, Pirates have been to 10 finals, and their record has been rather anomalous.

10 – League Cup finals reached by Pirates since 1982

2 – League Cup finals won by Pirates (2011 and 2025)

20% – win rate for Pirates in this competition’s finals (the lowest among teams with 3+ finals)

Important.

A dominant outing

Yet, this version of Pirates came into the game in solid form, having lost one of their last 20 games in all competitions. Most importantly, they had rediscovered their defensive identity in the preceding games, keeping three consecutive clean sheets following a run of three games without one just before. While not tested extensively by their opponents, that defensive solidity proved crucial, and provided the perfect foundation for Pirates to launch multiple attacking sequences.

Given that Marumo had eliminated both Sundowns (Last 16) and Golden Arrows (semi-final) by penalties, Marumo may have been playing for penalties again. If that was the strategy, they were close to successfully executing it. Except, when it doesnt happen, it looks like there was just one team actively chasing a win in regulation time. Pirates dominated the chances throuughout the game, and their goalkeeper was not troubled throughout.

18 – shots for Pirates in this game (compared to just three for Marumo)

8 – shots on target for Pirates (0 for Marumo)

6 – saves made by Washington Arubi (Marumo Gallants goalkeeper)

0  – saves made by Sipho Chaine (Orlando Pirates goalkeeper)

Vindication.

Chiefs stumble yet again

The only league game of the weekend saw Kaizer Chiefs travel to TS Galaxy looking to end a three match winless run across competitions. The 0-0 result means that eight of the last nine league games between Chiefs and Galaxy have ended in a draw. The result stretches Chiefs’ winless run to four games, a worrying trend given how they started the season. The last time Chiefs went on a longer winless run was 18 months ago (5 games). However, they’ll consider themselves unlucky not to have scored at least once in this one – it was a failure of conversion, rather than a failure of creation that cost them.

24 – shots for Chiefs, their most in a league game they failed to score in since we have shot data (2020+)

1.76 – xg for Chiefs (compared to 0.16 for Galaxy)

13 – goals for Chiefs this season (only once before have they registered fewer goals at this stage)

9 – clean sheets for Chiefs this season (only once before have they registered more at this stage).

Inefficient.