21 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. SuperSport United lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
“I was told what my role would be, and I signed on that basis. It has not happened.” A grievance with a date attached is the hardest kind to settle.
Player ratings16 Aug 2027
A brace, and Themba Zwane takes the afternoon — 8.25
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Themba Zwane provided it, and the 8.25 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
4 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.
Thulani Manyama 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.
Sifiso Phiri 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at SuperSport United this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Nobody at SuperSport United 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.
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at SuperSport United heard it as anything else.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 20 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.
Thulani Manyama 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.
A season average of 7.03 at an age when most of his year group are still in the youth team. SuperSport United know what they have, and so, by now, does everybody else.
At 30 the improving is meant to be over. It is not: 3 points better than the mark taken at the start of the year, which is the sort of thing that happens to players who take the boring parts of the job seriously.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 23 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.
Percy Lorch 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.
Squad28 Jun 2027
Luther Erasmus 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.
It is the rarest sequence in football: supporters ask for something, and the club goes and does it. $1.0M for Matías Esquivel, and for one week nobody is complaining about anything.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at SuperSport United, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 21 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at SuperSport United this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad21 Jun 2027
Themba Zwane 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.
Ronwen Modiba 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.
It is the rarest sequence in football: supporters ask for something, and the club goes and does it. $570.0K for Angelo Van Rooi, and for one week nobody is complaining about anything.
There is a level at which a footballer stops being tested and starts being contained, and he reached it some time ago. SuperSport United know it, and so does everybody who watches him.
Nobody at SuperSport United 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.
$230.0K is a serious amount of money and it does not play centre-forward. Everybody in the dressing room knows who used to be looked at when it went wrong.
The offer from Al Jazira for Ramahlwe Dolly 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.
He is going to Free State Stars, the club has $230.0K it did not have on Friday, and the phone-ins have already decided how they feel about that. Selling well and selling somebody they loved are not the same skill.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at SuperSport United this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
He is 21, he is averaging 7.03, and older professionals have started passing to him in the difficult minutes. That last part is the real scouting report.
Percy Lorch 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.
Nobody at SuperSport United 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at SuperSport United this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
A season average of 7.03 at an age when most of his year group are still in the youth team. SuperSport United know what they have, and so, by now, does everybody else.
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.
Percy Lorch 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.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Anthony Uzodimma and SuperSport United agree another 4 years.
The board have answered with money instead of encouragement, which is the only answer a manager ever wants. Spending it well is now entirely his problem.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” SuperSport United 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 SuperSport United this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
A season average of 7.03 at an age when most of his year group are still in the youth team. SuperSport United know what they have, and so, by now, does everybody else.
Percy Lorch 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at SuperSport United this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Nobody at SuperSport United 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.
Percy Lorch 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.
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 SuperSport United this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
5 signings in three months. Every one of them may be an upgrade and the team can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild that never appears in the transfer-window verdicts.
Chances created: 8. Not on the scoresheet and not remotely anonymous — a passing performance that pulled a defence apart without leaving a mark on the column that gets read.
18 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. SuperSport United lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Player ratings1 Feb 2027
Dean Manyama, 20, plays like he has been here for years — 7.82
A mark of 7.82 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.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.11 at 39, and nobody on the pitch was better.
Percy Lorch 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.
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. 10 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” SuperSport United 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 SuperSport United this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Boards get told what they have done wrong for years and hear nothing on the days they get it right. This is one of those days: Thabo Nkwana from University of Pretoria for $360.0K, and a ticket office having a very good morning.
Ninety minutes, no goals, and the argument started before the car park emptied: a point gained, or two thrown away against Platinum Stars? Both sides of it will still be going on Thursday.
The board had gone up, the arguing had started, and then the ball was in the net in the 92th minute. Orlando Pirates will replay every second of the added time for a week.
Percy Lorch 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.
The hardest thing about being 20 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Dean Manyama did not need any: 7.76, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Babacar Sarr 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at SuperSport United this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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.
“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.
Player ratings14 Dec 2026
Ronwen Modiba was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.26. 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.
Ronwen Modiba wins it after the whistle should have gone
93 minutes played. Ronwen Modiba found the finish in time that only existed because of earlier delays, and Ajax Cape Town went from a point to nothing inside one movement.
Player ratings26 Oct 2026
Up for the corner, and Babacar Sarr delivers — 7.48
Centre-halves are allowed forward twice a season and are judged on what they do when they get there. Babacar Sarr scored, was marked 7.48, and got back before anybody noticed he had gone.
A 3‑2 win over Ajax Cape Town, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
A performance of 8.30 does not come along often, and when it does the rest of the team becomes scenery. He was magnificent.
Player ratings26 Oct 2026
Ramahlwe Dolly was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.23. 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.
Percy Lorch 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.
6 signings in three months. Every one of them may be an upgrade and the team can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild that never appears in the transfer-window verdicts.
“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 SuperSport United, and it is not being withdrawn.
He will be fined, he will apologise, and he will play on Saturday. The order of those three tells you everything about what a football club actually values.
It is a specific kind of quiet, a ground watching a winning position dissolve. Black Aces kept coming because nothing stopped them, and SuperSport United will be asked about the last half hour all week.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 8 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
The offer from Black Aces for Siyabonga Manyama 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.
Themba Kekana 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.