The most ruthless Pirates
In order to select the truest, or correct, Orlando Pirates’ best-ever XI, you would need to have been born roughly a century ago and still going strong.
Old enough to have watched Pirates in their formative days before World War II, through the unstructured but heady 50s, onto the old South African Soccer League in the early 60s and then the birth of black professional soccer with the launch of the National Professional Soccer League in 1971.
Plus, you will have needed to have been around to see the club barely managing to avoid relegation in the late 80s before bouncing back to be crowned African champions in the mid-90s. No such person exists, unfortunately, so in selecting a best-ever Pirates line-up some players are judged on first-hand knowledge, others on reputation. It is important to point out, however, that structured soccer exists only for the last 50 years of Pirates history, effectively diminishing the calibre of the football they played for their first three decades. But the tales of the exploits of the key players of those days have endured through the ages.
This team is selected by KICK OFF’s Mark Gleeson with a modern tactical line-up, which sees four across the back, a defensive holding midfielder and two creative men in the middle
