The words a physio says slowly. 75 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
1 kept out in the shoot-out, and a stadium that will still be describing them in twenty years. A goalkeeper only needs one of these to be remembered forever.
Player ratings11 Sep 2028
A brace, and Luke Daniels takes the afternoon — 8.12
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Luke Daniels provided it, and the 8.12 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
5 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at University of Pretoria has to find a result from somewhere.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at University of Pretoria this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Siyanda Msani is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
The words a physio says slowly. 82 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
Veli Mothwa was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
“If you cannot run for the shirt, somebody else will wear it.” No name was used and none was needed; every player in that room knew who it was for.
Squad4 Sep 2028
Lucky Letwaba has improved at 25, which nobody expected
Careers are supposed to plateau and then decline, and the players who ignore that are always the ones who were listening on the training ground. 3 points of it, over months, at an age where the direction normally only goes one way.
The words a physio says slowly. 89 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at University of Pretoria, and it is not being withdrawn.
Samuel Julies was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Squad28 Aug 2028
Luvoyo Phewa falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
Shots: 8. Goals: none. The chances were there and they were good ones, and they went into the stand, the goalkeeper's arms and the side netting in roughly that order.
It has stopped being a mood in the stands and started being something organised. Boards can ignore a bad atmosphere for a long time; they cannot ignore this stage of it for very long at all.
The words a physio says slowly. 96 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” University of Pretoria may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at University of Pretoria this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Marked 5.30. Nothing he attempted worked and by the hour mark he had stopped attempting much, which is the part a manager notices rather than the mistakes.
The words a physio says slowly. 103 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 7.98 at 34, and nobody on the pitch was better.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 20 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at University of Pretoria this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
At 24 the improving is meant to be over. It is not: 4 points better than the mark taken at the start of the year, which is the sort of thing that happens to players who take the boring parts of the job seriously.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Bantu Chingi. 2‑1 against Polokwane City, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Player ratings14 Aug 2028
Bantu Chingi was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.51. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
Marked 8.00 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
The words a physio says slowly. 110 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
What was said behind closed doors has now been said in front of a microphone. Everybody at University of Pretoria can do the arithmetic, including the man it is aimed at.
Nothing has been announced and everybody understands what it means. A board that summons the whole football department on a Tuesday morning is a board that has stopped believing the problem will fix itself.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 21 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
Veli Mothwa was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
At 27 the improving is meant to be over. It is not: 4 points better than the mark taken at the start of the year, which is the sort of thing that happens to players who take the boring parts of the job seriously.
5 boys move up, and somewhere in the building the people who coached them at twelve are quietly having the best morning of their working year. Nothing about this shows up in a result and it is why the academy exists.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Dean Mahlangu has been at this club since he was a boy and is now, formally, one of the first-team squad — which for a local readership beats any signing of any size.
The words a physio says slowly. 117 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at University of Pretoria this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad31 Jul 2028
Luvoyo Phewa has improved at 28, which nobody expected
Careers are supposed to plateau and then decline, and the players who ignore that are always the ones who were listening on the training ground. 4 points of it, over months, at an age where the direction normally only goes one way.
In brief
SquadLuvoyo Phewa falls out with a teammate over standards
12 without a win now, and the ground has developed the special quiet of a crowd that expects the worst. One scrappy 1-0 would cure most of it; that is the maddening part.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what University of Pretoria can pretend not to have heard.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at University of Pretoria this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The shirt still fits. Lucky Letwaba is back at University of Pretoria, and half the ground remembers him in these colours already. Some signings need selling to the town; this one sold itself.
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Lucky Letwaba is living that version at University of Pretoria, and it tends to show in the first month.
In brief
Player ratingsNinety minutes of Monnapule Saleng at his very best