Marked for Bradley Mphela
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Market7 Mar 2033
“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 The request is on a desk at Ajax Cape Town, and it is not being withdrawn.
Squad7 Mar 2033
Hlompho Phiri 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.
Squad7 Mar 2033
Hlompho Phiri makes the team of the month
Four or five weekends of consistency, measured against everybody else in the division. A quieter compliment than an award and a more reliable one.
Squad7 Mar 2033
“I have done everything asked of me in training and it has not changed a thing on a Saturday.” The most familiar complaint in football, and one Ajax Cape Town will have to answer with minutes or with a transfer.
The dugout7 Mar 2033
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Houssem Eddine Souissi, and the manager let it.
The dugout7 Mar 2033
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Thamsanqa Phiri is on it.
The dugout7 Mar 2033
Thabo Cele has been promised minutes
A conversation in the manager’s office, and a commitment that came out of it. Promises like that are cheap to make and expensive to break, and Thabo Cele has written the date down.
Market7 Mar 2033
Ajax Cape Town have let the market know Comfort Ngubo can be had. No price in the advert, but everyone in the trade knows roughly what it says.
Boardroom7 Mar 2033
64 graduates from an academy now rated 11 out of 20. A club this size does not survive any other way, and every name on that list is known in the town.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Market21 Jun 2032
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around Ajax Cape Town people have started saying his name in the past tense.
Transfer targets21 Jun 2032
The clubs had agreed and the player had not. A snub, and a public one: Mamelodi Sundowns keep him, and the supporters here are left wondering what he had heard about the place.
Squad21 Jun 2032
Evidence Mahlangu 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.
Transfer targets21 Jun 2032
Mamelodi Sundowns wanted more than $29.0K and the board would not go there. Walked away, for now, which in a transfer window means until somebody blinks.
Transfer targets21 Jun 2032
The approach was made and the answer came back in a sentence. There is no number on the table because there was no number that would have been enough.
Squad21 Jun 2032
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Ali Jaber was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The dugout21 Jun 2032
news_b_reunited_with_his_manager
Market21 Jun 2032
The clock does Thulani Modiba’s negotiating for him
6 months left, and both sides know what that means: every week without a signature, the fee Ajax Cape Town could ask drops and the wages Thulani Modiba can ask rise.
The dugout21 Jun 2032
He asked about his future and was given an answer with minutes in it. The manager has now made a promise in a building where promises are remembered, and the clock on it has started.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Match7 Feb 2032
A 1‑5 beating by SuperSport United was the sort of result that empties a stadium long before the final whistle.
Player ratings9 Feb 2032
Keagan Erasmus, 20, plays like he has been here for years — 7.68
A mark of 7.68 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 20-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
Transfer targets9 Feb 2032
Ajax Cape Town asked and Mamelodi Sundowns said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Squad9 Feb 2032
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Thabo Cele commits to Ajax Cape Town for another 2 years.
Squad9 Feb 2032
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Ajax Cape Town this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Player ratings9 Feb 2032
Successful dribbles: 18. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Squad9 Feb 2032
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Ali Jaber was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Boardroom9 Feb 2032
The manager kept them in and said what needed saying. A response is expected on Saturday, and if it does not come the questions move upstairs.