It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at AFC Leopards this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
8.07. 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.
2 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.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 123 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Ajax Cape Town go through and Mamelodi Sundowns go home, 1‑1 the scoreline that did it. The dressing room will call the league the priority now, because that is what dressing rooms say.
The 86th minute, half the ground already edging towards the exits, and Tashreeq Matthews decided nobody was going anywhere. Polokwane City had no time left to answer.
The words a physio says slowly. 18 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.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 32 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
The hardest thing about being 19 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Bennet Mokoena did not need any: 8.84, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at AFC Leopards this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
At 19 he is being sung about by people twice his age, which is an affection a signing has to earn over years and a local kid gets for turning up. It is also the hardest thing in football to live up to.
The words a physio says slowly. 25 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.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 39 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Fredrick Alushula will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around AFC Leopards the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Squad15 Feb 2027
Words at AFC Leopards training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Kaycie Odhiambo 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. 32 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.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 46 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
“The easiest signature of my career.” Humphrey Katasi and AFC Leopards agree another 3 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at AFC Leopards this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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 a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 18-year-old it feels ownership of. Shaun Els has it now, and everything he does for the rest of his time here will be measured against the goodwill he was handed for free.
A 2‑0 win over Kakamega Homeboyz, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
The words a physio says slowly. 41 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.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 53 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
The offer from Kenya Police for Fredrick Alushula was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Victor Otieno will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around AFC Leopards the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Kaycie Odhiambo 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.
Squad1 Feb 2027
Hassan Beja 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.
35 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. AFC Leopards lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 60 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
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.
The name of Fredrick Alushula has come up in conversations AFC Leopards were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at AFC Leopards this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 74 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
The offer from Mathare United for Levis Esambe was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what AFC Leopards can pretend not to have heard.
He will play here until the summer and then walk out of the door for free, having already signed elsewhere. Supporters will manage the first part of that sentence; it is the second they will struggle with.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Lwandiso Radebe is 17, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at AFC Leopards this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
4‑1, and the margin flattered nobody — it could have carried another goal or two without complaint. Afternoons like this are why people keep coming.
Player ratings4 Jan 2027
A brace, and Nuno Santos takes the afternoon — 8.73
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Nuno Santos provided it, and the 8.73 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
At 37 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.79 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
The offer from Paradou for Keanu Cupido was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
Ronwen Williams 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.
There are footballers who have a good season and footballers a season is remembered for, and the second kind get their names read out in a hall in the summer. Mamelodi Sundowns will be quietly delighted and privately nervous.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Lwandiso Radebe is 17, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Add another name to the list: Jomo Cosmos have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Khulumani Ndamane. The answer from Mamelodi Sundowns has not changed — yet.
The words a physio says slowly. 42 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.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 6 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Mamelodi Sundowns this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 17-year-old it feels ownership of. Lwandiso Radebe has it now, and everything he does for the rest of his time here will be measured against the goodwill he was handed for free.
It finished 2‑0, and it was Nuno Santos’s afternoon: on the scoresheet when it mattered, and the reason the points belong to Mamelodi Sundowns.
Player ratings16 Nov 2026
Nuno Santos was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.42. 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.
The words a physio says slowly. 76 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.
3 wins in a row changes how opponents warm up: quieter, more glances across. Runs end, everybody knows that — but nobody in this dressing room is planning for it.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Mamelodi Sundowns this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Lwandiso Radebe is 17, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 17-year-old it feels ownership of. Lwandiso Radebe has it now, and everything he does for the rest of his time here will be measured against the goodwill he was handed for free.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Mothobi Mvala. 2‑0 against Golden Arrows, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
17 defensive actions and a clean sheet at the end of them. A defender's afternoon can only be told by what did not happen, which is why nobody makes a highlights package out of one and every manager in the division would take it.
The words a physio says slowly. 106 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.
The terraces21 Sep 2026
The boos come down from three sides
“We pay for this every fortnight. The least we want is somebody who looks like he cares.” 7 of the 34 senior players walked off into it; the rest were not playing.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Mamelodi Sundowns this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 17 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.
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at Mamelodi Sundowns heard it as anything else.
“I watch every Mamelodi Sundowns game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Asante Kotoko runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.