{"id":95898,"date":"2026-02-15T17:30:44","date_gmt":"2026-02-15T17:30:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/south-africa\/all-news\/pirates-lead-sundowns-by-six-points-in-title-race"},"modified":"2026-02-15T18:02:10","modified_gmt":"2026-02-15T18:02:10","slug":"pirates-lead-sundowns-by-six-points-in-title-race","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/south-africa\/all-news\/pirates-lead-sundowns-by-six-points-in-title-race","title":{"rendered":"Pirates lead Sundowns by six points in title race"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"color: #ff6600\"><strong>Africa-Press &#8211; South-Africa. <\/strong><\/span>Leaders Orlando Pirates beat lowly Marumo Gallants 3-0 in Soweto on Saturday to take a six-point lead over title-holders Mamelodi Sundowns midway through the South African Premiership season.<\/p>\n<p>The Buccaneers, who last won the championship in 2012, needed only four minutes to take the lead through Yanela Mbuthuma. Patrick Maswanganyi added a second before half-time.<\/p>\n<p>South African international Relebohile Mofokeng completed the rout with five minutes of regular time remaining in front of a 26,000 crowd.<\/p>\n<p>His goal was the best of the three. He took the ball across the edge of the box, then lifted it over 40-year-old Zimbabwe goalkeeper Washington Arubi into the roof of the net.<\/p>\n<p>After losing their first two league matches, including a defeat away to Marumo, Pirates are unbeaten in 14 under Morocco-born former Fulham defender Abdeslam Ouaddou.<\/p>\n<p>Pirates have 38 points and Sundowns 32, with a game in hand, ahead of a top-of-the-table showdown on Wednesday in Johannesburg.<\/p>\n<p>The demand for tickets has been so great that Pirates have switched the fixture from their 38,000-seat stadium in Soweto to the 90,000-capacity Soccer City ground 10 kilometres away.<\/p>\n<p>Sundowns had a Premiership bye this weekend as they were playing in the CAF Champions League. They beat Mouloudia Alger of Algeria 2-0 in Pretoria on Saturday to qualify for the quarter-finals.<\/p>\n<p>After winning just one of 15 league matches since the season kicked off last August, Chippa United beat Richards Bay 3-0 in East London to complete a hat-trick of victories.<\/p>\n<p><strong>For More News And Analysis About <span style=\"color: #ff6600\">South-Africa<\/span> Follow <span style=\"color: #ff6600\">Africa-Press<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Africa-Press &#8211; South-Africa. Leaders Orlando Pirates beat lowly Marumo Gallants 3-0 in Soweto on Saturday to take a six-point lead over title-holders Mamelodi Sundowns midway through the South African Premiership season. The Buccaneers, who last won the championship in 2012, needed only four minutes to take the lead through Yanela Mbuthuma. Patrick Maswanganyi added a [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":95897,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,17],"tags":[275],"class_list":["post-95898","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-all-news","category-sport","tag-south-africa-2"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v26.1 (Yoast SEO v27.0) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Pirates lead Sundowns by six points in title race - South Africa<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Leaders Orlando Pirates beat lowly Marumo Gallants 3-0 in Soweto on Saturday to take a six-point lead over title-holders ...\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/south-africa\/all-news\/pirates-lead-sundowns-by-six-points-in-title-race\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Pirates lead Sundowns by six points in title race\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Leaders Orlando Pirates beat lowly Marumo Gallants 3-0 in Soweto on Saturday to take a six-point lead over title-holders ...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/south-africa\/all-news\/pirates-lead-sundowns-by-six-points-in-title-race\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"South Africa\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/AfricaPressTunisiaa\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2026-02-15T17:30:44+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2026-02-15T18:02:10+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/south-africa\/sites\/31\/2026\/02\/sm_1771165576.069674.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1200\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"630\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/south-africa\/all-news\/pirates-lead-sundowns-by-six-points-in-title-race#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/south-africa\/all-news\/pirates-lead-sundowns-by-six-points-in-title-race\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"cfeditoren\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/south-africa\/#\/schema\/person\/068c7ab4e9634ae78ec5d54ec46598bb\"},\"headline\":\"Pirates lead Sundowns by six points in title race\",\"datePublished\":\"2026-02-15T17:30:44+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2026-02-15T18:02:10+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/south-africa\/all-news\/pirates-lead-sundowns-by-six-points-in-title-race\"},\"wordCount\":260,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/south-africa\/all-news\/pirates-lead-sundowns-by-six-points-in-title-race#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/south-africa\/sites\/31\/2026\/02\/sm_1771165576.069674.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"South-Africa\"],\"articleSection\":[\"all news\",\"sport\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/south-africa\/all-news\/pirates-lead-sundowns-by-six-points-in-title-race#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/south-africa\/all-news\/pirates-lead-sundowns-by-six-points-in-title-race\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/south-africa\/all-news\/pirates-lead-sundowns-by-six-points-in-title-race\",\"name\":\"Pirates lead Sundowns by six points in title race - 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