“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 The request is on a desk at Ajax Cape Town, and it is not being withdrawn.
“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.
Squad24 May 2027
Words at Ajax Cape Town training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Sifiso Khune 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 has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Khama Mabunda signs something — a contract at Ajax Cape Town or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
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 Hlompho Williams is on it.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Ajax Cape Town, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Khama Mabunda 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 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.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Gift Vilakazi trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
“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.
Squad26 Apr 2027
Words at Ajax Cape Town training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Sifiso Khune 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 has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Khama Mabunda signs something — a contract at Ajax Cape Town or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
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 Hlompho Williams is on it.
Khama Mabunda 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.
Squad12 Apr 2027
Words at Ajax Cape Town training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Sifiso Khune 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 table has started to be checked before the results are in, and that is always the tell. Nobody at Ajax Cape Town says the word out loud, and everybody in the building is thinking it.
“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.
Khama Mabunda 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.
Everybody at Ajax Cape Town saw it before anybody said it, which is how this always goes. At 38 the decline is real and measurable — 3 points — and the only question left is how the club handles somebody it owes a great deal to.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Ajax Cape Town know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
In brief
The dugoutKhama Zungu knocks on the manager’s door
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 Ajax Cape Town this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“The easiest signature of my career.” Teboho Hlatshwayo and Ajax Cape Town agree another 4 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
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.
Position 14 and 21 points, and the table gets read bottom-up in this part of town. The calendar has stopped being a schedule and started being a countdown.
Position 14 on 21 points. Every season is a story and this is the last line of it, and now the club has three months to decide what the next one is about.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Ajax Cape Town have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
4 games without scoring. Strikers stop looking up, midfielders take the extra touch, and every shot that clears the bar is followed by a groan that has been building since the last goal.
Khama Mabunda 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 chances are being made and something is happening between the making and the finishing. 3 matches now, and the anxiety in the ground arrives a little earlier every week.
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.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Khama Mahlangu and Ajax Cape Town agree another 3 years.
“The supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 0‑1, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
He used to wear the other shirt. On Saturday he plays against Kaizer Chiefs in this one, and whatever he says this week about it being just another game will be untrue.
Khama Mabunda 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.
18 days, the medical staff say, and medical staff are optimists by profession. The team sheet will look wrong without him.
Squad8 Mar 2027
Words at Ajax Cape Town training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Teboho Hlatshwayo 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.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Hlompho Williams and Ajax Cape Town agree another 3 years.
A player who expected to start watched it instead. The manager will call it a decision for the team; Khama Zungu will call it something else in private.
“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 dugout8 Mar 2027
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.” Morgan Furman chose the glass-half-full version of 0‑0; the supporters left with the other one.
The team at the top of the table next, and the honest measure of where this side actually is. Anybody can beat the club below them; the question is what happens against Mamelodi Sundowns.
Position 14 and 20 points, and the table gets read bottom-up in this part of town. The calendar has stopped being a schedule and started being a countdown.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Williams Vilakazi. 1‑0 against Jomo Cosmos, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
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.
The hardest thing about being 21 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Hlompho Williams did not need any: 7.68, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
Khama Mabunda 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.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Ikorodu City have kept their man, and Ajax Cape Town go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
He is 21 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.
20 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Ajax Cape Town lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
The offer from Bidvest Wits for Khama Zungu 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.
The clubs have shaken hands with University of Pretoria; the player has not yet. Personal terms are next, and personal terms are where more deals die than anybody prints.
The deadline has passed and the squad is the squad. 3 arrived, 2 left, and everything else printed about this club last month was a rumour that stayed one.
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.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. San Telmo have kept their man, and Ajax Cape Town go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
28 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Ajax Cape Town lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
11 without a win now, and the ground has developed the special quiet of a crowd that expects the worst. One scrappy 1-0 would cure most of it; that is the maddening part.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Ajax Cape Town can pretend not to have heard.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Teboho Hlatshwayo and Ajax Cape Town agree another 4 years.
The words a physio says slowly. 37 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.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Ajax Cape Town have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Khama Mabunda 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.
Defending was optional and nobody took up the option. 6 goals between Ajax Cape Town and Free State Stars, and not one of the people who paid to be there will ask for the money back.
$20.0K was the most the club would pay and University of Pretoria were asking for more. Deals like this are revived in the last week of a window roughly half the time, and everybody involved knows it.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Ajax Cape Town can pretend not to have heard.
Khama Mabunda 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.
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Kwanele Msomi is living that version at Ajax Cape Town, and it tends to show in the first month.
Level with 91 minutes on the clock, after an afternoon Ajax Cape Town had all but put away. Chippa United will call it a point earned; the home dressing room will call it two given away, and both of them are right.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Sifiso Williams was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Kwanele Msomi and Ajax Cape Town agree another 3 years.
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.
Half the programme played, position 14, 11 on the board. Doubling it is the sum every supporter has done and the only one nobody at the club will do out loud.
10 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.
A month is long enough that nobody gets in by accident. Teboho Hlatshwayo is in the division's best eleven for it, which is a quieter compliment than an award and a more reliable one.
“It is not the end of the world and it is not good enough. Both of those are true.” The manager, after a 0‑0 draw, said the honest thing and then went to say it again inside.
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.
Successful dribbles: 16. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad30 Nov 2026
Words at Ajax Cape Town training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Sifiso Williams 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.
Khama Mabunda 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.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Morgan Furman after 0‑2, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
The system has changed and his position has not. A footballer can improve his form; he cannot improve the manager’s formation, and that is the whole of the problem.
The manager wanted a different profile for this opponent, which is a real football reason and no consolation. He did nothing wrong and he did not play.
A new face in his position, and Ramahlwe Lorch suddenly has to win back what he thought he owned. Ajax Cape Town have promised nothing — clubs rarely do at this stage.
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.
Every footballer has an answer to the question about his boyhood club, and most of them never get to act on it. Kwenzakwenkosi Mbatha has, at Ajax Cape Town, and the first month will show what that does to a man.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Sifiso Williams was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
7 new signings in one window. Every one may be an upgrade and the side can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild the verdicts never mention.
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.
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Nkonzenhle Hlongwa is living that version at Ajax Cape Town, and it tends to show in the first month.
“The easiest signature of my career.” Nkonzenhle Hlongwa and Ajax Cape Town agree another 3 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
The manager has re-ordered his thinking and Kermit Lorch has come out of it lower. He will be told it is temporary, and the players who have heard that before will avoid his eye.
“We earned that. I asked them for a reaction and I got one, and now I want the same again on Saturday.” Morgan Furman on a 1‑0 afternoon that pleased him more than he was prepared to show.
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.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 21-year-old it feels ownership of. Khama Zungu 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.
A month is long enough that nobody gets in by accident. Sifiso Khune is in the division's best eleven for it, which is a quieter compliment than an award and a more reliable one.
The dugout5 Oct 2026
The manager’s verdict
“I am not going to get carried away and I will not let them either. It was a good day. There will be harder ones.” Morgan Furman kept it short after the 1‑0 win, which is what managers do when they are happy.
Somebody else has been better, the manager has said so with a team sheet, and there is no argument to be had. He will get the shirt back the only way it can be got back.
Khama Mabunda 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.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 19 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 is not the end of the world and it is not good enough. Both of those are true.” The manager, after a 1‑1 draw, said the honest thing and then went to say it again inside.
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.
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Justine Mthwane’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and Ajax Cape Town needing him to play as if none of it matters.
Khama Mabunda 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 players deserve the credit. My job was easy today.” It was not, and everybody in the room knew it; after 1‑0, Morgan Furman could afford to be generous.
Somebody else has been better, the manager has said so with a team sheet, and there is no argument to be had. He will get the shirt back the only way it can be got back.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Ajax Cape Town, and both men came out saying it was fine.
The deal that would have taken Khama Zungu to Chippa United has collapsed at the last stage, and he reports back to Ajax Cape Town with a summer to forget and a season still to play. Nobody is saying which side walked away.
Boardroom7 Sep 2026
Ajax Cape Town close the window on a squad of their own making
7 in and 0 out, and no more changes for months. The manager has what he has, the supporters have their opinion of it, and the table will have the last word.
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.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Ajax Cape Town, another week without a signature from Khama Zungu.
The manager has re-ordered his thinking and Williams Mokotjo has come out of it lower. He will be told it is temporary, and the players who have heard that before will avoid his eye.
“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.
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Bandile Shandu’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and Ajax Cape Town needing him to play as if none of it matters.
“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.
The interest is real enough to have reached print. Ajax Cape Town have said nothing, which in a transfer window is its own kind of answer.
The terraces31 Aug 2026
Ajax Cape Town spend $140.0K on the signing the town wanted
It is the rarest sequence in football: supporters ask for something, and the club goes and does it. $140.0K for Justine Mthwane, and for one week nobody is complaining about anything.
Platinum Stars left with the points after a 0‑1 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
The dugout31 Aug 2026
The manager’s verdict
“That is on me. I pick the team and I picked wrong.” Managers say that when they mean it and when they need to be seen to, and after 0‑1 Morgan Furman left the room before anybody could ask which.
Gift Billiat 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.
He is 19, and nobody at Ajax Cape Town signed him for this season. Deals like this are judged in four years, by people who may not still be in the building.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Ajax Cape Town can pretend not to have heard.
The number the board signed off was not enough. It has been asked again and raised its own offer to $150.0K — a club that wants Ntando Ngwenya enough to be asked twice.
$140.0K on the table at Golden Arrows. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Gimnasia y Esgrima have kept their man, and Ajax Cape Town go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Gift Billiat 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.