Siyabonga Mabena 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.
Squad26 Apr 2027
Daniel Mjengu 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.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Platinum Stars, and both men came out saying it was fine.
“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 Platinum Stars will have to answer with minutes or with a transfer.
31 points in position 11: too many to go down, too few to go anywhere. The honest description of a season like this is a shrug, and the supporters have already given it.
Public backing, and the sort that costs a manager something if it turns out to be wrong. Themba Grobler has been told in front of everybody that the shirt is his.
Jayden Adams 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.
Squad28 Dec 2026
Words at Platinum Stars training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Rivaldo Zwane 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.
3 matches, no goals, and a training ground that has tried everything. It will end — droughts always do — but nobody at Platinum Stars can tell you which week it ends in.
Successful dribbles: 19. 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 had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Platinum Stars, and both men came out saying it was fine.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Platinum Stars this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Rivaldo Zwane was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
He is 20 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.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Kutlwano Letlhaku. 1‑0 against Bidvest Wits, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.