The SuperSport United Sentinel
Player ratings1 Jan 2029
Nuno Santos scores twice — 8.63
Two goals and a mark of 8.63 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Squad1 Jan 2029
Bongani Khune is named among the best
There are footballers who have a good season and footballers a season is remembered for, and the second kind get their names read out in a hall in the summer. SuperSport United will be quietly delighted and privately nervous.
Market1 Jan 2029
Denis Chigozie puts it in writing
“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 The request is on a desk at SuperSport United, and it is not being withdrawn.
Player ratings1 Jan 2029
No sign of nerves from Alwande Booysen at 20 — 7.76
The hardest thing about being 20 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Alwande Booysen did not need any: 7.76, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
Squad1 Jan 2029
Tempers go at SuperSport United
Morgan 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.
Squad1 Jan 2029
Bradley Zwane 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.
The terraces1 Jan 2029
The crowd has taken to Alwande Booysen
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.
Match30 Dec 2028
Nuno Santos the difference as SuperSport United beat Chippa United
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Nuno Santos. 2‑0 against Chippa United, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Squad1 Jan 2029
When it matters, Bongani Khune plays
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.
In brief
- Market The Teboho Zwane story refuses to die
- Player ratings Bradley Zwane runs at them all day
- Market Sifiso Mokotjo’s agent stirs the pot again