EXPLAINED: How Kaizer Chiefs, Orlando Pirates and other PSL teams can beat Mamelodi Sundowns to the league trophy in 2025/26 season

In the last two years, Sundowns have achieved record-breaking points totals of 73, with this year’s record-equalling total being achieved with two fewer games than 2023/24 and three points being deducted for beating Royal AM before they were kicked out of the PSL.

To reach and beat this kind of points total, you have to win a minimum of 25 matches in a season. To put that in perspective, you need a win percentage of 83% in a highly competitive league stacked with teams who can beat anyone (except Sundowns, of course) on any given day.

It will also require beating Sundowns at least once, but preferably twice, to keep as many points off their relentless accumulation as possible because if you needed 74 points to beat them in the last two seasons, next season you might need more as they will undoubtedly strengthen in the off season after their Club World Cup experience.

Anybody who wants to dethrone The Brazilians needs to have tunnel vision and focus on that task. The distraction of cup competitions and continental assignments will stretch your resources too thin, just ask Orlando Pirates about that.

It will take a very brave coach to just play the kids and fringe players in any non-league matches, as the fans and media will not take kindly to that, especially if the inevitable league form wobble hits.

But if you take your eyes off the league prize, even for a moment, then the team from Pretoria who have won the title by 13, 16, 16, 23 and currently 17 points in the last five years will be out of reach before you can say, ”Wait a minute, I wasn’t ready yet!”

According to Transfermarkt, the Sundowns squad is worth €35m or R722,000,000, which is an awful lot of zeros. The kind of zeroes only a dollar billionaire can afford, so if anyone wants to challenge Sundowns on the field, they will need to challenge them off the field with a sizable bank balance first.

Just one player, Arthur Sales, cost a reported R63 million and Sundowns could afford for him to have a 'settling in' season where the 22-year-old attacker only made the starting eleven in 28% of their league matches and could be benched and/or left out of matches that didn’t suit his playing style, or Miguel Cardoso’s mood.

Anyone else in the PSL would have to buy two or three Arthur Sales to be able to manage that process of patient acclimatisation while winning the league.

Potential title challengers will need to hope that one of Johan Rupert, Nicky Oppenheimer, Koos Bekker, Michiel Le Roux, or Christoffel Wiese are in the market for a local football club.

Look at this list:

Gaston Sirino, Ricardo Nascimento, Jose Ali Meza, Emiliano Tade, Leonardo Castro, Arthur Sales, Lucas Ribeiro, Marcelo Allende, Matias Esquivel, Lucas Suarez, Bryan Aldave, Jorge Acuna, Vincente Principiano, Eduardo Ferreira, Jose Torrealba and Rafael Dudamel.

Every one of these players were sourced from Sundowns' impeccable scouting connections in South America. Admittedly, not every player on that list was a hit, but the success ratio is really impressive.

As the old saying goes - if you can’t beat them, join them - and anyone hoping to overthrow Sundowns' iron-like grip on the league trophy will need to source their own army of South American talent to unleash on the PSL.

Don’t stop there though, you’ll need to scour the rest of the earth too in the hope of picking up that hidden gem currently plying his trade in the Swedish second division, or banging in the goals for an obscure team from Burkina Faso. And don't forget to hoover up the best talent of your PSL rivals.

It was then Sundowns coach Manqoba Mngqithi who first raised the issue of needing to beat all the ‘smaller teams’ in the PSL to take the title. And while the quotes were more likely mind games with his early-season title rivals, Orlando Pirates, he did actually make a good point.

Beating smaller teams is not as easy as you think, especially away from home. They tend to come into the match set up in a low block and are instructed to disrupt the flow of the match as much as they can get away with. They will also have analysed your attacking plays and trained specifically to counter the threat of your most dangerous attacking players.

Playing against this type of opposition every week is difficult, frustrating and infuriating for the ‘superior’ team and can quickly wreak havoc on your season.

You need to come up with multiple plans and strategies to avoid 0-0 draws, or God forbid, a 1-0 loss, when you can least afford it.

We have already established that you will likely need around 25 wins and north of 73 points to win the league title. To get there, you need to be ruthless in all aspects of the club. Record signing missing more chances than he scores? Bench him. Veteran goalkeeper making mistakes? Send him to the reserves. Coach struggling to beat your direct rivals? Fire him. 

Look at what Sundowns have done to their coaching staff in the last 12 months if you want a lesson in ruthlessness. 

In July 2024, after he won the inaugural African Football League and set the first of Sundowns' PSL record points hauls, the golden boy of South Africa’s coaches, Rhulani Mokwena, left ‘by mutual consent’ after he reportedly fell out with sporting director Flemming Berg.

Mokwena was replaced by Manqoba Mngqithi, a club man through and through, after 11 years of faithful service in a variety of coaching roles. In five months, he delivered a record of P22 W16 D2 L4 and a win percentage of 7. Not good enough for the likes of Sundowns and he was fired with Miguel Cardoso already waiting in the wings to take over. Ruthless.

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