Marked for Erick Mphela
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad13 Sep 2027
A fracture rules Andile Dolly out for 127 days
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason CotonTchad will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Squad13 Sep 2027
Adamu Mohammad is a better footballer than he was
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 22 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.
Squad13 Sep 2027
Zaid Karouch 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 CotonTchad this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad13 Sep 2027
Sammy Kiplangat has improved at 25, which nobody expected
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. 4 points of it, over months, at an age where the direction normally only goes one way.
Market13 Sep 2027
The name of Léger Djimrangar keeps appearing in other people's back pages. CotonTchad say nothing, which says plenty.
Market13 Sep 2027
11 months to run and not a word offered. A club that lets the calendar negotiate for it usually ends up losing to the calendar.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Match17 May 2027
CotonTchad refuse to drop out of the race
Position 1, 64 points, and the result everyone checks first is now theirs. The word is still not being said around the ground, which is how you know everyone is thinking it.
Squad17 May 2027
“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” CotonTchad may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.
Squad17 May 2027
Zaid Karouch 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.
Squad17 May 2027
Words at CotonTchad training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Mondli Miya 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.
Squad17 May 2027
Gbolahan Salami has become a man the manager trusts
Nobody at CotonTchad will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
Market17 May 2027
Every press conference now starts and ends the same way: with Stephen Okola’s future. The manager has run out of new ways to say nothing.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Market10 May 2027
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around CotonTchad they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Squad10 May 2027
Yannis Tafer 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 CotonTchad this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad10 May 2027
Mondli Miya 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.
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Match20 Mar 2027
12 wins on the spin now, and the question has changed from whether the run ends to who ends it. Confidence like this cannot be bought; it has to be earned exactly this way.
Match22 Mar 2027
CotonTchad are in among the leaders
Position 1 and 63 points on the board. Nobody at the ground will say the word out loud yet, and everybody at the ground is thinking it.
Squad22 Mar 2027
A fracture rules Esaie Djikoloum out for 37 days
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason CotonTchad will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Match20 Mar 2027
CotonTchad make home a hard place to visit
13 without defeat on their own grass. The pitch has not changed; the crowd has — louder earlier, and quicker to sense when the opposition would rather be somewhere else.
Player ratings22 Mar 2027
Yannis Tafer, 36, rolls back the years — 8.03
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.03 at 36, and nobody on the pitch was better.
Squad22 Mar 2027
Erick Mphela: that is not what I was promised
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” CotonTchad have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Squad22 Mar 2027
Stephen Okola 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.
Squad22 Mar 2027
Zaid Karouch 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.
Match20 Mar 2027
Three points for CotonTchad, 1‑0 the final word against Renaissance in a contest settled by the finer margins.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad4 Jan 2027
A fracture rules Esaie Djikoloum out for 118 days
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason CotonTchad will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Squad4 Jan 2027
An individual honour is a strange thing in a team game, and the best of them are never argued with. He has had the sort of year that ends with his name being read out, and CotonTchad have had the benefit of it.
Market4 Jan 2027
Gazelle come back empty-handed
The bid was some way short and CotonTchad did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Market4 Jan 2027
“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 CotonTchad, and it is not being withdrawn.
Squad4 Jan 2027
Words at CotonTchad training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Zaid Karouch 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.
Squad4 Jan 2027
Esaie Djikoloum 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.
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Match31 Oct 2026
Rarely has this fixture seen a display like it: 4‑1 against AS Etat Major, and it could have been more.
Squad2 Nov 2026
The match ball belongs to Yannis Tafer, whose 3 goals turned a difficult afternoon into a procession.
Player ratings2 Nov 2026
Age has not caught Yannis Tafer yet — 8.39
At 35 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.39 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Match31 Oct 2026
Nobody wants to play CotonTchad right now
3 wins in a row changes how opponents warm up: quieter, more glances across. Runs end, everybody knows that — but nobody in this dressing room is planning for it.
Squad2 Nov 2026
Zaid Karouch 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 CotonTchad this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad2 Nov 2026
Words at CotonTchad training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Joseph Molangoane 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.
Match31 Oct 2026
There is a particular helplessness in conceding 2 times before the twentieth minute. AS Etat Major tried to reorganise, CotonTchad did not allow it, and the result was written long before it was confirmed.
Squad2 Nov 2026
The manager makes an example of Goukouni Abakar
“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.
Player ratings2 Nov 2026
Successful dribbles: 14. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Market21 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 Black Aces, and it is not being withdrawn.
Match19 Sep 2026
4 matches without a win for Black Aces
The run now stands at 4, and the questions being asked around Black Aces are no longer polite ones.
Squad21 Sep 2026
Morgan Mokotjo 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.
Squad21 Sep 2026
Sifiso Furman is a better footballer than he was
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.
Match19 Sep 2026
Ajax Cape Town left with the points after a 0‑2 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
Player ratings21 Sep 2026
Nobody could get near Gift Zungu
Successful dribbles: 19. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad21 Sep 2026
The manager makes an example of Bongani Mkhize
“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.
Squad21 Sep 2026
Nobody will confirm this and nothing else explains the last month of selections. A costly error buys a player a period of being second choice that is always longer than the error was.
Market21 Sep 2026
The name of Sifiso Mahlangu keeps appearing in other people's back pages. Black Aces say nothing, which says plenty.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Match9 Sep 2026
Kaizer Chiefs ended it 2‑3. The season narrows to the league now, and everyone in the ground knew it before the final whistle.
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 Black Aces, and it is not being withdrawn.
Player ratings14 Sep 2026
Ramahlwe Phiri could not have asked for more on his first appearance — 7.20
Debuts are survived rather than enjoyed. This one was enjoyed: 7.20, 0 goals, and a manager already being asked whether he starts again next week.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 6 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Market14 Sep 2026
The offer from Bloemfontein Celtic for Kermit Erasmus 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.
Player ratings14 Sep 2026
Successful dribbles: 20. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad14 Sep 2026
“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.
Match12 Sep 2026
Maritzburg United left with the points after a 0‑1 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Keagan Kekana 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.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Player ratings7 Sep 2026
Successful dribbles: 30. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Market7 Sep 2026
Keagan Kekana 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 Black Aces can pretend not to have heard.
Market7 Sep 2026
Bradley Kekana has left for Platinum Stars in a $240.0K deal. The accountants are pleased; the supporters are less certain.
Match5 Sep 2026
University of Pretoria left with the points after a 0‑1 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Words at Black Aces training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Keagan Kekana 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.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Erick Mphela 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 Black Aces this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Ronwen Mabunda named in the team of the month
A month is long enough that nobody gets in by accident. Ronwen Mabunda is in the division's best eleven for it, which is a quieter compliment than an award and a more reliable one.
Market7 Sep 2026
Both sides expect a conversation in the coming days. Black Aces will name a price, and everything after that is arithmetic.