The Free State Stars Chronicle
Market31 Aug 2026
Free State Stars make Tshepiso Mahlangu the dearest name in their history
$320.0K. Fees like that buy a footballer and rent a debate: every touch will be measured against the number for a season at least.
Match29 Aug 2026
A 2-goal lead gone for Free State Stars
It is a specific kind of quiet, a ground watching a winning position dissolve. Chippa United kept coming because nothing stopped them, and Free State Stars will be asked about the last half hour all week.
Player ratings31 Aug 2026
Lebogang Zungu scores twice — 8.42
Two goals and a mark of 8.42 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Market31 Aug 2026
Dean Mkhize 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 Free State Stars can pretend not to have heard.
Player ratings31 Aug 2026
Nobody could get near Morgan Kekana
Successful dribbles: 23. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
The terraces31 Aug 2026
Free State Stars spend $320.0K on the signing the town wanted
It is the rarest sequence in football: supporters ask for something, and the club goes and does it. $320.0K for Tshepiso Mahlangu, and for one week nobody is complaining about anything.
Squad31 Aug 2026
The manager makes an example of Itumeleng Khune
“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.
Squad31 Aug 2026
Mandla Modiba in a row with a teammate
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Free State Stars this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad31 Aug 2026
Words at Free State Stars training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Williams 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.
In brief
- Match Free State Stars and Chippa United take a point apiece
- Player ratings The cruellest goal, and it is Luther Dala's
- Market The shop window has Teboho Vilakazi in it