Marked for Faustin Ambassa
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market31 Aug 2026
“I have given everything here and I need a new challenge.” The request is formal, and the relationship will never be quite the same again.
Squad31 Aug 2026
Joan Gaona in a row with a teammate
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Victoria United this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad31 Aug 2026
Facundo Moreira 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.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad10 Aug 2026
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Werner Oosthuizen has just signed for Victoria United, and for once the answer mattered.
Squad10 Aug 2026
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Victoria United this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad10 Aug 2026
“The easiest signature of my career.” Werner Oosthuizen and Victoria United agree another 4 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Squad10 Aug 2026
Words at Victoria United training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Osas Okoro 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.
Market10 Aug 2026
The clock runs on Brayann Nana's contract
48 months left and silence from upstairs — no offer, no talks, nothing for his people to answer. Clubs that let a calendar do their negotiating usually end up negotiating with the calendar.
Market10 Aug 2026
Joan Gaona is 35 and has run out of things to prove. What he has left is where to stand, when to slow it down and what to say at half-time, and none of that is on a fitness chart.