The Soweto giants, Orlando Pirates, defended the Nedbank Cup on Saturday by beating Mamelodi Sundowns with a late winner in the final at the Mbombela Stadium in Nelspruit.

The Premier Soccer League champions, Sundowns, broke the deadlock in the 54th minute when Themba Zwane found the back of the net.

The Buccaneers responded with 20 minutes left to play when Patrick Maswanganyi scored a penalty in the 71st minute to equalise.

But the best was saved for last when Relebohile Ratomo scored the winning goal in the 94th minute to prevent the match from going into extra time.

The Pirates coach, Jose Riveiro, lauded his teams’ never-die attitude which led to them claiming a 14th Nedbank Cup title and successfully defending their crown.

“We tried something different, we changed the profile of our forwards to, to get that control expecting that they will have problems in the last part of the game, in the last 25-30 minutes. It was an excellent performance in terms of not giving up.

“The team was trying and little by little we started to get more control. We managed to equalise and I think the reaction of the team once we scored talks about how much they believed that we could make it. We suffered, but sometimes you need to be a little bit lucky in these types of games.”

The Nedbank Cup official brought a close to the 2023/24 domestic season.

Morgan Piek OFM Sport