Marked for Erick Williams
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.
Back issues
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
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.