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.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Itumeleng Dolly 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.
Position 6, 26 points, and every result so far reduced to one line. The second half of the season starts with the same squad and a different set of expectations.
4 call-ups is a compliment to the squad and a headache for the man running it. He will get them back in a fortnight, tired, in various states of repair.
“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.
7 clean sheets from 10 appearances at MC Alger. That is the whole of a goalkeeper’s job done properly, and it is being done a long way from the club that owns him.
The most common injury in the game and the most rushed back from. SuperSport United will quote 14 days and will be careful with it, because the second one is always worse than the first.
Andile Mphela 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.
A 2‑0 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.
3 straight away victories. Sides that win away are usually sides that can defend and can counter, and the table has begun to reflect what those journeys have earned.
Marked 8.47 — 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.
“I watch every SuperSport United game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Bidvest Wits runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
Successful dribbles: 35. 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.
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 24 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.
“The players deserve the credit. My job was easy today.” It was not, and everybody in the room knew it; after 3‑0, Ronwen Mokoena could afford to be generous.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Bradley Hlatshwayo was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Successful dribbles: 24. 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.
“We earned that. I asked them for a reaction and I got one, and now I want the same again on Saturday.” Ronwen Mokoena on a 1‑0 afternoon that pleased him more than he was prepared to show.
“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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Bradley Hlatshwayo was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
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.
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.
Successful dribbles: 36. 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.
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.
Marked 8.09 — 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.
Minute 94, against Chippa United, and a goal that felt like a win to everybody who had stayed. It was a draw. Nobody leaving the ground will describe it as one.
It finished 2‑2, and it somehow always looked like it would. One of those afternoons where the table moves less than the tempers.
The dugout21 Sep 2026
The manager’s verdict
“I am frustrated, honestly. We did enough to win and we did not win.” Ronwen Mokoena was not hiding it after 2‑2, and nobody in the SuperSport United dressing room was either.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Khama Jali trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Ajax Cape Town arrived with $220.0K and left with the best player in the building. The board will call it business; the queue at the ticket office will use other words.
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around SuperSport United people have started saying his name in the past tense.
“I know what people will say. I know what I want, and it is here.” CR Belouizdad had the fee agreed and the shirt ready; they did not have the player, and now they will not.
Themba Hlatshwayo has gone, the accounts have $220.0K in them, and the supporters have the feeling of having been sold something themselves. Good business and a good decision are not always the same thing.
Mamelodi Sundowns wanted more than $2.9M and the board would not go there. Walked away, for now, which in a transfer window means until somebody blinks.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Kaizer Chiefs have kept their man, and SuperSport United go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 6 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
The offer went to Mamelodi Sundowns this week and it is theirs to answer. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loud the door closes.
Thamsanqa Zwane 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.
8 goals. Both benches spent the second half looking at each other rather than at the pitch. Purists will complain about SuperSport United and Black Aces in equal measure; everybody else had a wonderful time.
Every footballer has an answer to the question about his boyhood club, and most of them never get to act on it. Reyaad Pieterse has, at SuperSport United, and the first month will show what that does to a man.
The clubs had agreed and the player had not. A snub, and a public one: Fluminense keep him, and the supporters here are left wondering what he had heard about the place.
“The easiest signature of my career.” Rivaldo Khune and SuperSport United agree another 4 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
He left as a boy and has come back still knowing where the away end is. Most signings have to be explained to a town; this one needed a photograph and nothing else.
The morning the pathway stops being a brochure and becomes a team sheet. Most of them will not be here in three years; all of them have already done the hard part, which was getting to today.
It is the rarest sequence in football: supporters ask for something, and the club goes and does it. $170.0K for Joaquín Mendive, and for one week nobody is complaining about anything.