Chaine sees parallels with David in how Pirates’ keeper rose to slay his Goliaths

When Sipho Chaine joined Orlando Pirates as a little-heralded goalkeeper from Chippa United on a transfer deadline day in September 2022, not many would have predicted it would take him less than six months to be the club’s No 1.

Chaine, the 29-year-old who has just played a crucial role in Pirates winning their first Betway Premiership title in 14 years by contributing a record-breaking 21 clean sheets, arrived at the Soweto club as third-choice gloveman, a role he was all too familiar with, having also been down in Chippa’s goalkeeping pecking order.

Initially at Pirates, the Bloemfontein lad who cut his teeth at now-defunct Bloemfontein Celtic was behind then first-choice Ghanaian Richard Ofori and veteran Siyabonga Mpontshane at Bucs.

It was Ofori’s battle with injuries, coupled with Mpontshane’s dip in form, that parachuted Chaine to Bucs’ No 1 spot quicker than he might have expected. The keeper made sure to grab the opportunity with both hands.

Reflecting on his journey and meteoric rise at Pirates, the now-household name credited God and hard work, likening himself to the biblical David, who, as the book would have it, fought lions and bears in the wilderness to gain the courage and faith he needed to slay Goliath.

“A shepherd boy can kill a lion, a shepherd boy in a wilderness killing a bear with his bare hands, killing a lion, and then one day he got a stage to kill one of the biggest giants and to take over and be the king of Israel,” Chaine enthused.

He was speaking after Pirates beat Orbit FC at Mbombela Stadium on Saturday to clinch their first league title since their famous second treble in succession in 2011-12. Remarkably, that title also clinched a treble in his first season for Bucs’ Moroccan coach Abdeslam Ouaddou, after they lifted the MTN8 and Carling Knockout in the first half of the campaign.

“Everyone has a story, everyone comes from somewhere, you just gotta believe in God for what He has given you,” Chaine continued. “Work as hard as you can in the wilderness because the big stage is for everyone.”

Even so, the keeper, part of Bafana Bafana’s squad that bowed out in the last 16 at the Africa Cup of Nations in January and February, downplayed his impressive feat of 21 clean sheets.

“We don’t always focus on the numbers. Yes, the numbers are a huge part of football, but there’s also a big part of football that’s not about numbers. What’s important for me is that I contributed to the team’s success,” Chaine said.

Chaine also did not want to rate winning the league title among his achievements at Pirates, having previously bagged four MTN8 titles, two Nedbank Cups and one Carling Knockout title, the bulk of those under Ouaddou’s Spanish predecessor Jose Riveiro, who had some success in domestic cups.

“I can’t scale achievement, but because it [the league] is the one we’ve always wanted as a group and as a club, it’s very special. I mean, we won MTN8 four times, can I say I can trade that for the league? Definitely I wouldn’t.”

It remains to be seen whether Chaine features when coach Hugo Broos announces the Bafana World Cup squad at the Union Buildings on Wednesday. The keeper was unceremoniously snubbed for the last camp, where Bafana played two friendly warm-ups against Panama in Durban and Cape Town in March.

“It’s every player’s dream to represent the country at the World Cup, [but] the most important thing was to control what I could, which is playing every day here like it’s my last game for Orlando Pirates,” Chaine said.

“What I could control is the number of saves I make, how many crosses I collect and things like that, and I leave the rest in God’s hands.”