Marked for Kermit Mokoena
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market5 Jul 2027
Al Ain come back empty-handed
The bid was some way short and Ajax Cape Town did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Squad5 Jul 2027
Kermit Mokoena 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.
Squad5 Jul 2027
Keagan Mkhize 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.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market21 Jun 2027
“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.
Squad21 Jun 2027
Njabulo Blom 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 Ajax Cape Town this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad21 Jun 2027
Njabulo Blom has improved at 27, 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.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market14 Jun 2027
The offer from Orlando Pirates for Themba Williams 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.
Market14 Jun 2027
“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.
Squad14 Jun 2027
Njabulo Blom 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.
Squad14 Jun 2027
Words at Ajax Cape Town training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Kermit Mokoena 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.
Squad14 Jun 2027
Riyaaz Koopstadt 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. 3 points of it, over months, at an age where the direction normally only goes one way.
Market14 Jun 2027
Orlando Pirates are about to pick up the phone
A conversation is coming this week. Ajax Cape Town will put a number on him, and from there it stops being football and becomes arithmetic.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market7 Jun 2027
$730.0K. No player has ever cost Ajax Cape Town more, and expectation arrives with him.
Market7 Jun 2027
Al Ain come back empty-handed
The bid was some way short and Ajax Cape Town did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Market7 Jun 2027
“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.
Market7 Jun 2027
“I want to win things, and I would like to do it here.” Nothing has been demanded and nothing has been threatened — but a boardroom at Ajax Cape Town hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
Squad7 Jun 2027
Njabulo Blom 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 Ajax Cape Town this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The terraces7 Jun 2027
Ajax Cape Town spend $730.0K on the signing the town wanted
It is the rarest sequence in football: supporters ask for something, and the club goes and does it. $730.0K for Sirgio Kammies, and for one week nobody is complaining about anything.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad31 May 2027
Njabulo Blom 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.
Squad31 May 2027
Words at Ajax Cape Town training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Kermit Mokoena 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.
Squad31 May 2027
Thabo Nkwana gets it from the manager
“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.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad8 Mar 2027
A fracture rules Andile Zungu out for 23 days
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Ajax Cape Town will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Squad8 Mar 2027
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Njabulo Blom commits to Ajax Cape Town for another 4 years.
Squad8 Mar 2027
Bradley Khune 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.
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Squad1 Mar 2027
A fracture rules Andile Zungu out for 32 days
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Ajax Cape Town will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Player ratings1 Mar 2027
2 goals, and the second was the one that settled it. Marked 8.33, and he could have had a third with better luck at the near post.
Market1 Mar 2027
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Ajax Cape Town is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Squad1 Mar 2027
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.
The terraces1 Mar 2027
The crowd has taken to Percy Phiri
At 20 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.
Squad1 Mar 2027
May Mahlangu gets it from the manager
“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.
Match27 Feb 2027
It finished 1‑0, and it was Themba Williams’s afternoon: on the scoresheet when it mattered, and the reason the points belong to Ajax Cape Town.
Squad1 Mar 2027
Nobody at Ajax Cape Town 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.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad15 Feb 2027
A fracture rules Andile Zungu out for 48 days
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Ajax Cape Town will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Squad15 Feb 2027
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 ratings15 Feb 2027
Successful dribbles: 20. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Squad15 Feb 2027
Words at Ajax Cape Town training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Thabo Nkwana 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.
Squad15 Feb 2027
No place for May Mahlangu on the big day
He found out with everybody else, an hour before kick-off, from a sheet of paper on a wall. Nobody at Ajax Cape Town pretended it was anything other than a decision about him.
Match13 Feb 2027
The crowd waited for a goal that never came. Orlando Pirates defended in numbers and left with what they came for, and the two sides could be playing still without troubling a scorer.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad28 Dec 2026
A fracture rules Rivaldo Mkhize out for 21 days
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Ajax Cape Town will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Match26 Dec 2026
The run now stands at 4, and the questions being asked around Ajax Cape Town are no longer polite ones.
Squad28 Dec 2026
Bradley Khune 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.
Match26 Dec 2026
Ajax Cape Town make home a hard place to visit
10 without defeat on their own grass. The pitch has not changed; the crowd has — louder earlier, and quicker to sense when the opposition would rather be somewhere else.
Player ratings28 Dec 2026
Successful dribbles: 21. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Squad28 Dec 2026
The manager makes an example of May Mahlangu
“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.
Player ratings28 Dec 2026
Morgan Modiba was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.09. 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.
Match26 Dec 2026
A 1‑1 draw with Free State Stars leaves the dressing room somewhere between relief and regret.
Squad28 Dec 2026
Njabulo Blom has become a man the manager trusts
Nobody at Ajax Cape Town 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.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Player ratings12 Oct 2026
Successful dribbles: 29. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad12 Oct 2026
Tatsuya Ito 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 Kawasaki Frontale this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Match10 Oct 2026
7 games unbeaten now. Some were earned and some were survived, but a habit is forming — and habits are the hardest thing in football to play against.
Match10 Oct 2026
8 matches unbeaten here. Every visiting manager is asked about it in the week before, which is precisely why it keeps going.
Player ratings12 Oct 2026
The afternoon belonged to Sota Miura
A mark of 7.80, and nobody in the ground would argue with it. He was involved in everything that mattered and most of what did not.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Player ratings21 Sep 2026
Successful dribbles: 52. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Squad21 Sep 2026
Jesiel 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 Kawasaki Frontale this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Player ratings21 Sep 2026
There is a version of this player everybody suspected was in there, and on this evidence it is. 8.26, and no argument anywhere in the ground.
Squad21 Sep 2026
Svend Brodersen dropped after a run of poor form
The one version of being left out a player cannot argue with, and the one he takes worst. Somebody else has been better and the team sheet says so, in public, every week until it changes.
Squad21 Sep 2026
When it matters, Tatsuya Ito plays
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Player ratings14 Sep 2026
Successful dribbles: 35. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Svend Brodersen 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.
Market14 Sep 2026
Add another name to the list: Irtysh have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Yuto Ozeki. The answer from Kawasaki Frontale has not changed — yet.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Asahi Sasaki 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.
Squad14 Sep 2026
“I respect the manager and I am not going to sit here and pretend I am happy.” It is the most common sentence in football and it has never once been the end of a story.
Squad14 Sep 2026
There is no complaint available here and everybody involved knows it, which does not make the walk to the bench any shorter. Form is the only currency in football that cannot be borrowed against.
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Market24 Aug 2026
$14.6M from Galatasaray for Percy Vilakazi. Money is money, but the dressing room has lost the man it looked to.
Player ratings24 Aug 2026
Successful dribbles: 30. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Market24 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.
The terraces24 Aug 2026
The accountants will call it good business and they will be right, which is not the point anybody outside the boardroom is making. Percy Vilakazi was one of the reasons people came, and $14.6M does not replace that by itself.
Match22 Aug 2026
Momentum is a hard thing to buy and an easy thing to lose, and right now Ajax Cape Town have 3 straight wins of it.
Market24 Aug 2026
Anderlecht come back empty-handed
The bid was some way short and Ajax Cape Town did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Njabulo Blom 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 Ajax Cape Town this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Match22 Aug 2026
A 2‑1 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.
The terraces24 Aug 2026
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 23-year-old it feels ownership of. Themba Williams 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.
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Player ratings17 Aug 2026
Successful dribbles: 48. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Match15 Aug 2026
3‑0, and the margin flattered nobody — it could have carried another goal or two without complaint. Afternoons like this are why people keep coming.
Market17 Aug 2026
The offer was not close and it was refused without much discussion. Whether the second one is refused as quickly is another matter.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Percy Vilakazi 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.
Market17 Aug 2026
Both sides expect a conversation in the coming days. Ajax Cape Town will name a price, and everything after that is arithmetic.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Words at Ajax Cape Town training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Kermit Mokoena 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.
Player ratings17 Aug 2026
There is a version of this player everybody suspected was in there, and on this evidence it is. 8.11, and no argument anywhere in the ground.
Player ratings17 Aug 2026
Percy Vilakazi was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.00. 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.
Squad17 Aug 2026
He wheeled away like a man who had been carrying it for months, because he had. Ajax Cape Town have their signing off the mark and one press-conference question retired.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market3 Aug 2026
The offer from Genoa for Percy Vilakazi 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.
Market3 Aug 2026
“I have ambitions, and I would like the club to share them.” Nobody has asked to leave and nobody has been shown the door — but a player chooses that sentence carefully, and a boardroom hears it exactly as it was meant.
Squad3 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 Ajax Cape Town this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.