Orlando Pirates marked a memorable night at Orlando Stadium on Tuesday night, with a 2–0 victory over TS Galaxy that delivered historic milestones for two of their stars.
Evidence Makgopa opened the scoring from the penalty spot before Tshegofatso Mabasa struck in the dying minutes to seal the result. Mabasa’s finish was his 50th goal for the Buccaneers since joining the club in 2019, cementing his status as one of Pirates’ most reliable forwards.
Mabasa is now second in the club’s all-time leading goalscorer list, only behind Benedict “Tso” Vilakazi who netted 58 times for Orlando Pirates.
“First of all, I’m happy for him. I’m very happy coach that Mabasa scored…It shows a fantastic team spirit of this player. Like I said at the beginning of the season he was not playing but you can see that he was involved 100% in training very professional all the time advising his teammates close to them very clean heart. So yeah, you know that for striker to score it’s very important and he knows that is very important and he was pushing it is fantastic spirit for my Mabasa and all all the players. I’m very happy about that.” – Coach Abdeslam Ouaddou on Tshegofatso Mabasa
The evening also belonged to Relebohile Mofokeng, who featured in his 100th game for the Soweto giants at just 20 years old. The highly rated attacking midfielder, who turns 21 next month, has already amassed 18 goals and 23 assists for Pirates, underlining his growing influence in the side.
“And the other thing is, he is in his house, he has some fantastic people in the club, the management, people who love him and he loves the club so he feel love inside the club, it’s what keep him and he was fantastic today and was happy about his performance and I hope you he will he will keep going like that and to show that the best of Rele” – Coach Abdeslam Ouaddou on Rele Mofokeng
The victory lifted Pirates to third place on the Betway Premiership table with 15 points from seven matches, keeping them firmly in the hunt in these early stages of the campaign.