Kaizer Chiefs roar with big win against Orbit, join Sundowns atop PSL

Kaizer Chiefs put in their most dazzling and convincing display of the season to overwhelm a game Orbit College FC 3-1 in an exciting Betway Premiership clash at FNB Stadium on Tuesday night. A result inspired by Mduduzi Shabalala's brace saw Amakhosi - long suffering with last season's Nedbank Cup breaking a decade without a trophy and ending in a dismal ninth place for the last two league campaigns - go to second place, level on 22 points from 11 games with eight-time successive champions Mamelodi Sundowns but separated by goal difference Enjoying their most solid start to a season in probably as long as that decade despite a coaching change that saw assistants Cedric Kaze and Khalil Ben Youssef become co-coaches in place of former boss Nasreddine Nabi, Amakhosi turned on the style, movement and hard, fast running to break down an Orbit who tried to put up a brave resistance. In fact, on Tuesday night's evidence, this Chiefs are really gaining some form of steam, their most exciting combination put together in years growing in confidence and unity and looking a side that can be a genuine menace in the 2025-26 season. Chiefs might have had more than a 1-0 lead by the break in a first half they dominated but they could not add to Shabalala's fourth-minute opener before the break. In the second half, they added another strike - by Shabalala in the 61st - then Orbit pulled in back via Ayanda Lukhele in the 70. But the dam really broke with two more strikes that delighted an excitable home crowd by Mfundo Vilakazi with a gem in the 73rd and Flavio Silva in the 89th. Shabalala's growth, which has resulted in Bafana Bafana call-ups in the second half of 2025, was again on display with his brace. He would have impressed Hugo Broos in the stands on Tuesday night again. For the Amakhosi youth product's opener soon after the start Thabiso Monyane was played into space on the right and cut back, Shabalala finishing low past Orbit goalkeeper Sabelo Nkomo. After the break, Shabalala made it 2-0 when a shot from outside the area was deflected to the feet of Etiosa Ighodaro on the right of the goalmouth. The Nigerian fed Shabalala free inside him who stroked into the exposed goal. Coach Pogiso Makhoye's twelfth-placed Orbit's determination to make a game of it was part of the spectacle. Lukhele reduced the deficit powerfully heading past Brandon Petersen - and breaking the Chiefs keeper's eight-match clean sheet run - from Yanga Madiba's cross. In a sign of the developing confidence at Naturena, Chiefs' other burgeoning talent, Shabalala's attacking 'terrible twin' Mfundo Vilakazi, restored the two-goal cushion with an absolute beauty, collecting the ball just inside the box on the right and curling a strike past Nkomo. At the end, Shabalala's cheeky chip in the box set up Ighodaro to volley the fourth.