Cemran Dansin - a new Cocomelon on the block with a stunning strike goal that is a contender for goal of the season

THE SUPERLATIVES, the clichés are unlikely to do Cemran Dansin’s maiden goal for Orlando Pirates justice. Early as it is in the season, we could well have witnessed the best goal of the 2025/26 Betway Premiership season already.

Granted we have to wait until the end of season awards ceremony to truly fathom the enormity of the cracker the young man scored in Saturday’s 1-1 draw with Orlando Pirates. But the comment by one of the television commentators that the equalizer that cancelled out Peter Shalulile’s opener was a contender for goal of the season was apt.

Upstarts in the professional ranks should not be embarrassing seasoned campaigners the way Dansin did the revered Ronwen Williams like he did.

The Sundowns number one is not only South Africa’s national team goalkeeper and captain but he is revered as among the best on the continent, his latest nomination for the CAF Goalkeeper of the Year award confirms that much.

But late in the second half of the weekend’s pick of the Betway Premiership clashes at a Loftus Versfeld packed to the rafters, the Buccaneers midfielder who’s barely out of his teens made Williams look like a Sunday Morning Park player.

Granted the Sundowns defenders should have closed the 20-year-old much better and not allowed him so much space. But many seasoned professionals have failed to use the opportunity the way Dansin did. That he used his supposedly weaker foot to smash the ball that was poorly headed out from a corner speaks volumes.

Superb goals have been scored in the Premiership era, and just this season both Mbekezeli Mbokazi and Tshepang Moremi have helped the Buccaneers to victory with peaches of their own that had some screaming contender for goal of the season. Scrap those, for the one that earned Pirates the point at Loftus has usurped them.

The youngster waited for no second invitation, not allowing the ball to bounce but smashing it on the volley over the Sundowns defensive wall. And then the trajectory it took, just brilliant as it went down like an arrow to go in just off the inside of the crossbar at the far right corner of the goal. Williams hardly moved.

They probably screamed ‘staan en kyk’ (stand and just look) out in Newclare where Dansin hails from. Williams resembled a statue as the ball whistled past him into the net. You knew he’d probably seen a ghost as he reacted by immediately going for his water bottle and drinking up, throat no doubt parched due to what had just transpired.

While the youngster’s delight no doubt knew no bounds, his celebration was a bit on the disappointing side. First goal in the elite league and a scorcher at that… and how did he celebrate it? Dansin did that silly thing players do – putting their hand to the ear as if to say ‘can I hear you’. If that was a tad lame, it was what he did next that disappointed me most. He put his index finger on his mouth to shoosh the crowd.

Why, oh why Camren? You’ve only just started playing boy and such acts are just not worth it. You should have danced. After all, you are a Dansin.

He is young though and he will learn. And here’s to hoping the seniors at Pirates show him the way.

Yet with the absence of Relebohile Mofokeng, the youngster could well have introduced himself as the latest super Cocomelon of the Buccaneers. The superb goal he scored has surely endeared him to The Ghost for a long time to come.