Marked for Erick Mahlangu
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad23 Nov 2026
54 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. SuperSport United lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Market23 Nov 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.
Squad23 Nov 2026
Kutlwano Letlhaku and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad23 Nov 2026
Luther Furman 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.
Match21 Nov 2026
Maritzburg United left with the points after a 0‑1 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
The dugout23 Nov 2026
“I could talk about decisions and I could talk about luck. I will not. We lost.” The manager, 0‑1, and a press conference that lasted four minutes.
The dugout23 Nov 2026
Alexandru Roşca has become a man the manager trusts
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.
Squad23 Nov 2026
One yellow too many, and a match watched from the stand. The most avoidable absence in football, and SuperSport United will feel it on Saturday.
Market23 Nov 2026
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. SuperSport United know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Steady
Match14 Nov 2026
Rarely has this fixture seen a display like it: 7‑4 against University of Pretoria, and it could have been more.
Squad16 Nov 2026
Erick Mahlangu damages knee ligaments — 61 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 61 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.
Player ratings16 Nov 2026
Two goals and a mark of 8.44 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Squad16 Nov 2026
3 goals in one afternoon from one man. The other players were also present, a witness confirmed.
Match14 Nov 2026
11 goals. Both benches spent the second half looking at each other rather than at the pitch. Purists will complain about SuperSport United and University of Pretoria in equal measure; everybody else had a wonderful time.
Squad16 Nov 2026
Thamsanqa Ngcobo 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.
Player ratings16 Nov 2026
There is a version of this player everybody suspected was in there, and on this evidence it is. 8.65, and no argument anywhere in the ground.
Player ratings16 Nov 2026
Ninety minutes of Ramahlwe Erasmus at his very best
Marked 8.27. Players have careers without a single afternoon like this in them, and he has just had one in front of everybody at SuperSport United.
Squad16 Nov 2026
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.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad9 Nov 2026
A knee injury of the worst kind for Erick Mahlangu
69 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.
Match7 Nov 2026
The board had gone up, the arguing had started, and then the ball was in the net in the 93th minute. Polokwane City will replay every second of the added time for a week.
Player ratings9 Nov 2026
Marked 8.43 at 20, in a side that makes no allowances for age. He did not need any, and he looked the least nervous man on the pitch.
Squad9 Nov 2026
He is 20, he is averaging 7.05, and older professionals have started passing to him in the difficult minutes. That last part is the real scouting report.
Squad9 Nov 2026
A move Simphiwe Dumisa would have made for nothing
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Simphiwe Dumisa is living that version at SuperSport United, and it tends to show in the first month.
Squad9 Nov 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 SuperSport United this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The terraces9 Nov 2026
He is 20 and the ground already sings his name, which is a thing that happens to local boys and almost never to signings. Everything from here is measured against an affection he did nothing to earn except be from here.
Match7 Nov 2026
A 1‑0 win over Polokwane City, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
The dugout9 Nov 2026
“We earned that. I asked them for a reaction and I got one, and now I want the same again on Saturday.” Gift Dolly on a 1‑0 afternoon that pleased him more than he was prepared to show.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad2 Nov 2026
Erick Mahlangu damages knee ligaments — 76 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 76 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.
Match31 Oct 2026
No end in sight to SuperSport United's wait for a win
4 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at SuperSport United has to find a result from somewhere.
Match31 Oct 2026
Beaten 1‑2, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
Squad2 Nov 2026
Somila Ntsundwana 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 dugout2 Nov 2026
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Alexandru Roşca, and the manager let it.
Squad2 Nov 2026
Words at SuperSport United training over how hard people work
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.
Player ratings2 Nov 2026
Successful dribbles: 17. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
The dugout2 Nov 2026
Something was said to Alexandru Roşca and then it happened. In this industry that passes for remarkable, and the dressing room noticed faster than any supporter could.
The dugout2 Nov 2026
“I could talk about decisions and I could talk about luck. I will not. We lost.” The manager, 1‑2, and a press conference that lasted four minutes.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad26 Oct 2026
A knee injury of the worst kind for Erick Mahlangu
85 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.
Squad26 Oct 2026
Kutlwano Letlhaku and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Player ratings26 Oct 2026
Successful dribbles: 19. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Match24 Oct 2026
Ajax Cape Town left with the points after a 0‑1 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
Squad26 Oct 2026
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.
Squad26 Oct 2026
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Siyabonga Billiat and SuperSport United agree another 4 years.
The dugout26 Oct 2026
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Gift Dolly after 0‑1, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
The dugout26 Oct 2026
The manager makes an example of Hlompho Mokoena
“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.
The dugout26 Oct 2026
Alexandru Roşca has become a man the manager trusts
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.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad19 Oct 2026
92 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. SuperSport United lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Player ratings19 Oct 2026
Successful dribbles: 30. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Player ratings19 Oct 2026
May Mahlangu pops up at the right end — 7.70
7.70, 1 on the scoresheet, and the specific comedy of a back-four player celebrating like somebody who does this every week. He does not, and that is exactly why the ground reacted the way it did.
Squad19 Oct 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 SuperSport United this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Match17 Oct 2026
The board was up, the win was priced in, and then Bidvest Wits scored. There is no worse minute to concede in and the ground emptied in the silence that follows one.
Match17 Oct 2026
It needed May Mahlangu to find the net to bring anything home at all: 1‑1 against Bidvest Wits, and half the dressing room will call it a point won.
The dugout19 Oct 2026
The manager’s verdict
“I am frustrated, honestly. We did enough to win and we did not win.” Gift Dolly was not hiding it after 1‑1, and nobody in the SuperSport United dressing room was either.
The dugout19 Oct 2026
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 Erick Williams is on it.
Market19 Oct 2026
Every press conference now starts and ends the same way: with Bradley Mokotjo’s future. The manager has run out of new ways to say nothing.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad12 Oct 2026
99 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. SuperSport United lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Market12 Oct 2026
Luther Furman hands in a written request
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what SuperSport United can pretend not to have heard.
Squad12 Oct 2026
Kutlwano Letlhaku 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.
Squad12 Oct 2026
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Dean Mahlangu is 21, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Player ratings12 Oct 2026
Successful dribbles: 20. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
Squad12 Oct 2026
Words at SuperSport United training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Luther Furman 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 dugout12 Oct 2026
“The supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 1‑3, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
Player ratings12 Oct 2026
One lapse, one goal, and ninety minutes of honest work counting for nothing. That is the job at SuperSport United, and it is a cruel one.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad5 Oct 2026
A knee injury of the worst kind for Erick Mahlangu
109 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.
Match3 Oct 2026
Rarely has this fixture seen a display like it: 4‑0 against Free State Stars, and it could have been more.
Squad5 Oct 2026
3 goals in one game. The first was taken well, the second was taken greedily, and by the third the crowd were simply waiting for him to get the ball.
Player ratings5 Oct 2026
Kutlwano Letlhaku, 20, plays like he has been here for years — 8.62
A mark of 8.62 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.
Player ratings5 Oct 2026
May Mahlangu, 37, rolls back the years — 7.90
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 7.90 at 37, and nobody on the pitch was better.
Squad5 Oct 2026
Kutlwano Letlhaku 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.
Squad5 Oct 2026
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Evidence Khune is 20, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
The terraces5 Oct 2026
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 22-year-old it feels ownership of. Alexandru Roşca 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.
Player ratings5 Oct 2026
There is a version of this player everybody suspected was in there, and on this evidence it is. 8.07, and no argument anywhere in the ground.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad28 Sep 2026
A knee injury of the worst kind for Erick Mahlangu
118 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 ratings28 Sep 2026
Successful dribbles: 23. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Squad28 Sep 2026
At 21 he is doing things this season that he could not do last season, and doing them every week. Form comes and goes; this has stayed long enough to be called something else.
Squad28 Sep 2026
Thamsanqa Ngcobo 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.
The dugout28 Sep 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.
Match26 Sep 2026
Level with 87 minutes on the clock, after an afternoon SuperSport United had all but put away. Platinum Stars will call it a point earned; the home dressing room will call it two given away, and both of them are right.
Squad28 Sep 2026
7 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.
Match26 Sep 2026
A 1‑1 draw with Platinum Stars leaves the dressing room somewhere between relief and regret.
The dugout28 Sep 2026
The view from the dugout
“We did not lose. Some weeks that is all you get, and I would rather have the point than not.” Gift Dolly chose the glass-half-full version of 1‑1; the supporters left with the other one.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad21 Sep 2026
A knee injury of the worst kind for Erick Mahlangu
125 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 ratings21 Sep 2026
Successful dribbles: 21. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
Squad21 Sep 2026
Sergio Sardinha gets the move he always wanted
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Sergio Sardinha has just signed for SuperSport United, and for once the answer mattered.
Squad21 Sep 2026
Somila Ntsundwana and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Match19 Sep 2026
0‑2 to Chippa United, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
Squad21 Sep 2026
Words at SuperSport United training over how hard people work
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.
The dugout21 Sep 2026
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Gift Dolly after 0‑2, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
The dugout21 Sep 2026
The manager makes an example of Alexandru Roşca
“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.
The dugout21 Sep 2026
Siyabonga Dolly 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.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad14 Sep 2026
132 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. SuperSport United lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Squad14 Sep 2026
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.
Player ratings14 Sep 2026
Williams Vilakazi could not have asked for more on his first appearance — 7.21
Debuts are survived rather than enjoyed. This one was enjoyed: 7.21, 0 goals, and a manager already being asked whether he starts again next week.
Player ratings14 Sep 2026
Successful dribbles: 25. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
Market14 Sep 2026
“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.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Somila Ntsundwana 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.
Transfer targets14 Sep 2026
SuperSport United ran out of time with Golden Arrows. The paperwork was open when the deadline passed, and a transfer that was almost done is now a transfer that never happened.
Player ratings14 Sep 2026
Marked 8.28 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Squad31 Aug 2026
Morgan Mokotjo damages knee ligaments — 88 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 88 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.
Transfer targets31 Aug 2026
SuperSport United have gone to Houston Dynamo with a bid, and the supporters have gone to the internet with an opinion about it. Whether either changes anything is up to the selling club.
Player ratings31 Aug 2026
A brace, and Ramahlwe Erasmus takes the afternoon — 8.31
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Ramahlwe Erasmus provided it, and the 8.31 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Market31 Aug 2026
The bid was some way short and SuperSport United did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Player ratings31 Aug 2026
No sign of nerves from Kutlwano Letlhaku at 20 — 8.31
The hardest thing about being 20 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Kutlwano Letlhaku did not need any: 8.31, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
Market31 Aug 2026
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what SuperSport United can pretend not to have heard.
Transfer targets31 Aug 2026
Kaizer Chiefs wanted more than $2.6M and the board would not go there. Walked away, for now, which in a transfer window means until somebody blinks.
Transfer targets31 Aug 2026
The deal with Dinamo Bucharest is done in every sense but the one that puts him on the pitch. Nothing goes wrong at this stage, except on the occasions when it does.
Squad31 Aug 2026
Thamsanqa Ngcobo 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.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Transfer targets3 Aug 2026
$1.5M on the table at Mamelodi Sundowns. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Thamsanqa Ngcobo and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Transfer targets3 Aug 2026
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Philadelphia Union have kept their man, and SuperSport United go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Squad3 Aug 2026
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Keagan Zwane commits to SuperSport United for another 2 years.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Siyabonga Jali was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Transfer targets3 Aug 2026
A loan enquiry to Javor-Matis: cover, or a look at somebody the club cannot afford to buy yet. Either way the answer will come back inside the week.
Transfer targets3 Aug 2026
Atletico Nacional have been asked whether they would lend him. Loans are agreed quickly or not at all, and this one will be one or the other by the weekend.
The dugout3 Aug 2026
“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.
Market3 Aug 2026
No place for Ronwen Dala in the plan
“The manager did not use many words, and he did not need to.” Ronwen Dala has his answer from SuperSport United; what he does with it is the next window’s story.