Kaizer Chiefs

The Calabash rises on the edge of Soweto, its bowl-shaped roof holding 94,736 seats — FNB Stadium, known locally as Soccer City, is where Kaizer Chiefs play now. Before that, Orlando Stadium was home: a smaller ground in the heart of Soweto where the earliest titles were won and where Chiefs still return on occasion.

The club exists because Kaizer Motaung came home. He had spent 1968 in the United States playing for Atlanta Chiefs in the North American Soccer League, and when he returned to Johannesburg he broke away from Orlando Pirates with a group of players later remembered as the Kaizer XI. Few gave the plan much chance — Motaung had no money behind him — but on 7 January 1970 the club was registered at his parents' house in Phefeni, and it took his own name and his old American team's in one word: Kaizer Chiefs.

Black and gold became the colours, and Amakhosi — Zulu for "Kings" — became the name that stuck. Domestic cups piled up over the decades: Chiefs have won the Nedbank Cup 14 times, most recently in 2025, and kept the same grip on the Telkom Knockout and the MTN8. In 2001 that reach went continental, when the club won the African Cup Winners' Cup. Doctor Khumalo outlasted everyone on the pitch, making 497 appearances in the shirt, while Collins Mbesuma's 39 goals in the 2004/05 season remain a mark nobody at the club has matched since.

None of it counts for as much, in Soweto, as the fixture against Orlando Pirates.