Eugene Zwane has widened the Player of the Season debate by putting Kaizer Chiefs captain Brandon Petersen on the same short list as Orlando Pirates trio Relebohile Mofokeng, Sipho Chaine and Oswin Appollis. His view shifts the conversation beyond Pirates’ title-winning year and into whether a Chiefs goalkeeper from a third-place side did enough to stand with the season’s most talked-about names.
The timing matters because Pirates’ 2025-26 campaign is already being framed as the dominant story of the South African top tier. They ended a 14-year wait to win the Premier Soccer League title ahead of Mamelodi Sundowns, who had ruled for eight straight league seasons, and added the MTN8 for an unprecedented fourth time in a row as well as the Carling Knockout. Against that backdrop, awards talk has naturally leaned toward the players who drove that run.
Mofokeng was one of the clearest numbers-driven cases. He scored 10 goals and added eight assists in 27 league matches, production that helped anchor Pirates’ title charge. Appollis delivered nine goals and six assists in 30 appearances, while Chaine finished with 21 clean sheets and only 12 goals conceded, a record that underlined how complete Pirates were from back to front.
But Zwane did not keep the conversation inside the Pirates dressing room. He said the two goalkeepers from Pirates and Chiefs deserved to be on the list because of their clean sheets and their performances, naming Chaine and Petersen directly. Petersen’s case rests on 15 clean sheets in 24 South African top-tier outings, a return that stood out even as Kaizer Chiefs finished third.
That is where the debate becomes less tidy. Zwane said Mofokeng’s contribution was by far the biggest in the Pirates team, but also argued that Appollis had been more consistent than Mofokeng over the course of the season. He still concluded that the four players in contention should be Chaine, Petersen, Mofokeng and Appollis, a ranking that puts a Chiefs captain into an awards race otherwise dominated by Pirates’ success.
What remains unresolved is whether that view carries any weight beyond opinion. The official shortlist was not set out in the material available, so Petersen’s inclusion depends on whether judges reward raw clean-sheet totals as heavily as they do a title-winning run. Zwane has made the case. The award panel still has to decide whether a third-place keeper can break into a race built around champions.
