5 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.
Free State Stars asked and Boca Juniors said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Gopolang Taunyane and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Themba Erasmus 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 hardest thing about being 19 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Mpho Padime did not need any: 8.06, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 6 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Free State Stars this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Free State Stars asked and Racing Club said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
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.
“Nobody here is above being told.” It was not said with a name attached, but the dressing room can count, and so can everybody who was listening.
Squad25 Jan 2027
Kgwadi Molepo 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.
6 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at Free State Stars has to find a result from somewhere.
Player ratings28 Dec 2026
Mpho Padime, 19, plays like he has been here for years — 7.95
A mark of 7.95 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 19-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Free State Stars this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. May Mahlangu 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.
Behind, and beaten by any honest reading, until minute 91. Kaizer Chiefs had the points in their pocket and a corner of the ground still believed, which is generally when it happens.
The dugout28 Dec 2026
Mothobi Mvala is still being punished for one mistake
Nobody will confirm it and the team sheets confirm it every week. One error has bought him a spell as second choice that is already longer than the error deserved.
Gopolang Taunyane 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and May Mahlangu was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“It is not the end of the world and it is not good enough. Both of those are true.” The manager, after a 2‑2 draw, said the honest thing and then went to say it again inside.
Nobody at Free State Stars will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
Two goals and a mark of 9.11 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Free State Stars they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 20-year-old it feels ownership of. Lwanda Mbanjwa 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 University of Pretoria, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and May Mahlangu was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Marked 7.21 on 10 actions at both ends of the pitch. Midfielders like this get described as unspectacular by people who have never tried to play against one.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Free State Stars this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
5 without a win is the sort of run that changes how a town talks about its club, and Polokwane City were the afternoon it stopped. Nothing is fixed by one result and everything feels different by one.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Mothobi Mvala. 1‑0 against Polokwane City, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Marked 6.64 on 11 actions at both ends of the pitch. Midfielders like this get described as unspectacular by people who have never tried to play against one.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Free State Stars have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Free State Stars this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” May Mahlangu and Free State Stars agree another 1 years.
Everybody saw it before anybody said it. At 36 the numbers say 3 points down on what he was, and the question for Free State Stars is how to handle a man they owe a great deal.
28 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Free State Stars lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Chippa United have accepted the money. What Free State Stars do not yet have is the man, and between here and the photograph is a conversation about wages that both sides are dreading.
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Sanele Sikhosana has just signed for Free State Stars, and for once the answer mattered.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Free State Stars can pretend not to have heard.
Boardroom7 Sep 2026
Deadline passes with 10 signed and 4 gone
That is the business done at Free State Stars until the window opens again. Whether it was enough will be answered on Saturdays rather than in a column, and the first Saturday is close.
The number the board signed off was not enough. It has been asked again and raised its own offer to $45.0K — a club that wants Lonwabo Magugwana enough to be asked twice.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Free State Stars this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
$44.0K on the table at Chippa United. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
The name of Themba Grobler has come up in conversations Free State Stars were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.