PSL 2025/26 Season Review: Pirates Are Champions, Sundowns Stumble, and a League That Found Itself Again

It is over. The 2025/26 Betway Premiership — 240 matches across 30 matchdays, played from August to May in stadiums from Cape Town to Polokwane — has produced its verdict. Orlando Pirates are league champions for the first time in eleven years. Mamelodi Sundowns, who have won the title in seven of the past nine seasons, finish second. Stellenbosch FC cement their status as the third force in South African football. Below the top three, a season that delivered more competitiveness, more drama and more genuine tactical evolution than anything this league has served up in years. Here is the complete review.

The Champions: Orlando Pirates

José Riveiro arrived in Johannesburg in December 2022 and told everyone who would listen that he was going to win the league. The reaction was polite scepticism from the press and anxious hope from a fanbase that had spent 11 years watching Sundowns dominate. He has now delivered. Riveiro's transformation of this Pirates squad is the greatest individual coaching achievement in South African club football of the past decade — a complete reimagining of how Buccaneers football looks, feels and wins.

The numbers are compelling. Pirates finished with 67 points from 30 games — the third-highest total in PSL history. They kept 16 clean sheets, the best defensive record in the division. Tshegofatso Mabasa scored 17 goals, joint-highest in the league. Relebohile Mofokeng, 19 years old and already being tracked by Bundesliga and Ligue 1 scouts, contributed 16 direct goal contributions from the left wing. The squad's average age was 24.3 — young enough to compete for this title for the next three years if the core stays together.

What made Pirates champions was not just the talent. It was the belief Riveiro installed, matchday by matchday, that no lead was safe against them and no deficit was permanent. Their record in matches where they were losing at half-time: 7 wins, 4 draws, 1 loss. That is not talent. That is culture.

The Stumble: Mamelodi Sundowns

Finishing second with 62 points — in any other PSL era — would have been considered a fine season. In Sundowns terms, it is a crisis and it will be treated as one. The club has too much institutional ambition, too much investment, and too much expectation from an ownership group that has never accepted runner-up status to process a title loss calmly.

Where did it go wrong? Two periods of the season cost them the title: the three-match losing run in October (eight points dropped in twelve days, primarily because of a fixture congestion caused by their CAF Champions League campaign) and the catastrophic February collapse, when a squad clearly fatigued by the World Cup preparation distraction shipped eleven goals in four league games. Rulani Mokwena will argue, correctly, that managing PSL and CAF simultaneously is structurally unfair. The counter-argument is that Sundowns' squad is the deepest in South African football and the rotation necessary to survive both campaigns was always available — it just wasn't deployed soon enough.

Sundowns will be back. They always are. The real question heading into 2026/27 is whether Mokwena's tenure continues or whether the club's board decides a new voice is necessary. Pitso Mosimane built a dynasty and left when it felt complete. Mokwena inherited it, extended it, and now faces his first genuine test of whether he can rebuild after a title loss. The answer to that question will define the next chapter of South African football.

The Story of the Season: Stellenbosch FC

For the third consecutive season, Stellenbosch finished in the top three and exceeded every pre-season projection. Steve Barker has constructed something genuinely remarkable in the Winelands — a club with a fraction of Sundowns' budget, a stadium that holds fewer than 10,000 people, and a philosophy of developing young South African talent rather than importing established names that is producing results no analyst could have predicted four years ago when they won promotion. Their third-place finish earns them a CAF Confederation Cup spot. It will be the biggest moment in the club's history.

The Individual Awards

Player of the Season: Relebohile Mofokeng (Orlando Pirates). At 19, he was the most exciting player in the PSL — technically mature beyond his years, physically capable of competing with players a decade older, and decisive in the moments that mattered. He will be in Europe next season. His departure will be felt.

Goalkeeper of the Season: Ronwen Williams (Mamelodi Sundowns). Even in a disappointing title defence, Williams kept 14 clean sheets and made the crucial saves that kept Sundowns in contention longer than the underlying performance deserved. His AFCON 2023 Golden Glove now sits alongside a series of PSL goalkeeper-of-the-season awards. He is, simply, the best goalkeeper South Africa has produced.

Coach of the Season: José Riveiro (Orlando Pirates). No debate. He won the title with the fourth-biggest budget in the division. That is not hyperbole — it is fact.

Surprise Package: Sekhukhune United. In only their second top-flight season, they finished seventh and played a brand of attacking football that attracted attention from clubs across the continent. They are a club worth watching for the next three years.

The Bigger Picture

The 2025/26 Betway Premiership was the first PSL season in seven years in which the title race was genuinely uncertain beyond the final two matchdays. That is healthy. That is what a competitive league looks like. Sundowns' near-decade of dominance — built through financial superiority and outstanding coaching — was always going to produce either permanent stagnation or eventually a rival capable of matching it. Riveiro has built that rival. The league is better for it. South African football, heading into a World Cup year, finds itself in better health than at any point since 2010.

Check the full PSL standings and fixtures for the final table, top scorers, and a look ahead to the 2026/27 season.