Orlando Pirates Next Game: MTN8 Final on 10 October, and the Nine Ways the Title Race Moves

Orlando Pirates’ next game is the 2026 MTN8 final against Mamelodi Sundowns, on Saturday 10 October 2026 at 18:00 South African time, at Moses Mabhida Stadium in Durban. Their next league game follows three days later: Orlando Pirates v TS Galaxy at Orlando Stadium on Tuesday 13 October at 19:30 SAST, a fixture the league has brought forward from 18 October. Our published picks are Pirates at 53 percent to lift the MTN8 trophy, which is a close-band call, and Pirates at 71 percent against TS Galaxy, which is a strong-band one. Both figures, and every pick we have ever published, are graded in public with the losses left on the page.

Every confirmed Orlando Pirates fixture

Dates, kick-off times and venues below were checked this morning against the SuperSport Betway Premiership fixture list, the ESPN South African Premiership feed and the reporting on the cup final. South African kick-off time is the SuperSport clock value plus two hours, which the official league site settled earlier this month, so the times here are true SAST.

Two things on this table we will not smooth over

The TS Galaxy game moved. Our own board carried it as Sunday 18 October at 18:00 until this morning. The SuperSport fixture list now places it on Tuesday 13 October and Soccerway lists the same fixture on 13 October as round 8, and a separate report describes the league stamping Pirates and Kaizer Chiefs fixture changes with games brought forward. The ESPN feed still shows 18 October, exactly as it still shows the Chiefs game against Stellenbosch on 17 October after the club itself confirmed the move to 13 October. On that pattern we have taken the two agreeing sources and corrected the board.

The 4 November round is disputed. The SuperSport list marks all seven fixtures that night as postponed, including Siwelele against Pirates. The ESPN feed lists all seven as scheduled at 17:30 UTC. We are publishing the fixture with that disagreement stated rather than deleting it or presenting one source as settled, and we are not attaching a confidence figure to a match whose date is in doubt.

Where Pirates are, and the season so far

Taken from the verified Betway Premiership table this morning. The division checks out arithmetically: wins total 34 and losses total 34, the drawn column totals 46 for 23 drawn matches, 34 plus 23 is 57 matches played, and goals for and goals against both total 130. For every club, wins plus draws plus losses equals games played and three times wins plus draws equals points.

Those seven Pirates league games, all seven verified on the ESPN club schedule and consistent to the goal with the league table: 2-0 at home to Milford on 1 August, 1-1 away at AmaZulu on 12 August, 3-0 away at Chippa United on 16 August, 2-0 at home to Sekhukhune United on 25 August, 4-0 away at Kruger United on 1 September, 2-0 at home to Durban City on 17 September and 2-0 away at Marumo Gallants on 20 September. Six wins, one draw, sixteen scored and one conceded. We published the goals-conceded table for all sixteen clubs in our Orlando Pirates news piece and will not repeat it here.

The nine ways the title race moves on 13 October

This is the original dataset on this page and it is not published anywhere else on this site. Pirates and Sundowns both play on Tuesday 13 October, Pirates at home to TS Galaxy and Sundowns away at Richards Bay. After that night both will have played eight league games, so for the first time this season the two can be compared without a game in hand clouding it. The grid below gives the Pirates points total minus the Sundowns points total for all nine combinations of results.

That is the tension this fixture sits in, and it is the reason the TS Galaxy game is rated higher than the cup final. On points per game Pirates are the better team in this division: 2.71 against 2.50, which over a 30 game season projects to 81.4 points against 75.0, a gap of 6.4. On the actual table, after one round in which both play, Pirates finish on top in only two of the nine possible outcomes, because Sundowns start the night a point clear and the away trip to a Richards Bay side still without a win is one our own board rates at 76 percent to Sundowns.

Read plainly, the rate says Pirates are ahead and the table says they are not yet. Both are true. A team with a game in hand has a claim and not a lead, and the claim only becomes a lead when the game is played.

Our record on Pirates, in full and without rounding up

The honest figure here is small and we are not going to dress it up. Across the whole public pick log this site has graded one Orlando Pirates pick: Kruger United against Orlando Pirates on 1 September, our call Pirates to win at 66 percent, final score 0-4, a win. One from one is a sample and not a hit rate, and nobody should read anything into it.

The wider figures, all read off the live site this morning:

The Betway Premiership column at 46 percent is the weakest league on our board, and it is worth saying so on a page that is about to put a 71 percent figure on a Betway Premiership fixture. The MTN8 final will be the first MTN8 pick this site has ever graded, so that column genuinely starts at zero on 10 October. There is no MTN8 row in the accuracy table on our homepage, which is how you can check that claim.

One pre-committed grading rule, stated before the match rather than after it. A cup final cannot be drawn, so the MTN8 pick is graded on who lifts the trophy, including extra time and penalties. In the league our rule is stricter and costs us regularly: a win pick loses on a draw.

Predictions on this site are published for information only and are not betting advice. Past results do not guarantee future outcomes. 18+ only. Betting involves risk and you can lose money, so never stake more than you can afford to lose. Free and confidential help is available from the South African National Responsible Gambling Programme on 0800 006 008, 24 hours a day.