A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Black Aces will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Black Aces have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
4 games without scoring. Strikers stop looking up, midfielders take the extra touch, and every shot that clears the bar is followed by a groan that has been building since the last goal.
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.
Squad15 Feb 2027
Words at Black Aces training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Siphamandla Sabelo 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.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Black Aces will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
“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.
Boardroom1 Feb 2027
Deadline passes with 0 signed and 0 gone
That is the business done at Black Aces until the window opens again. Whether it was enough will be answered on Saturdays rather than in a column, and the first Saturday is close.
Black Aces had done everything except persuade the man himself. He stays at Olympique de Marseille, and the manager goes back to the drawing board with the money still in the bank.
Defending was optional and nobody took up the option. 8 goals between Black Aces and Kaizer Chiefs, and not one of the people who paid to be there will ask for the money back.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Black Aces will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
7 without a win now, and the ground has developed the special quiet of a crowd that expects the worst. One scrappy 1-0 would cure most of it; that is the maddening part.
Bongani Kekana 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Williams Lorch was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
It needed Mandla Jali to find the net to bring anything home at all: 1‑1 against University of Pretoria, and half the dressing room will call it a point won.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Black Aces will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Siphamandla Sabelo was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Black Aces will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
“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.
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.
Beaten 0‑1, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
Squad30 Nov 2026
Words at Black Aces training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Williams Lorch 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.
Squad30 Nov 2026
7 new faces, and Black Aces are still learning each other
A squad rebuilt inside one window pays for it in a currency nobody budgets for. The football is not worse than the sum of the players; it is worse than the sum of the players who have played together before.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Bradley Zungu after 0‑1, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
It is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. Black Aces told Siphamandla Sabelo something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 103 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
The words a physio says slowly. 18 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
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.
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.
“A point is a point and I will take it, but we should have had all three.” Bradley Zungu after the 1‑1 draw, and the sentence every manager in the country said at some stage this weekend.
A brace, and Mandla Jali takes the afternoon — 8.52
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Mandla Jali provided it, and the 8.52 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Mandla Jali and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad19 Oct 2026
Words at Black Aces training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Bongani 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.
Minute 91, against Kaizer Chiefs, 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.
5 new signings in one window. Every one may be an upgrade and the side can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild the verdicts never mention.
“A point is a point and I will take it, but we should have had all three.” Bradley Zungu after the 2‑2 draw, and the sentence every manager in the country said at some stage this weekend.
In brief
The dugoutThe plan did not have a place for Cole Alexander
1‑5 to Orlando Pirates, and it was every bit as bad as the number suggests. There are defeats you argue about and defeats you apologise for; this was the second kind.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 7 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
6 goals in one match, Williams Mphela on the scoresheet, and a scoreline that will look like a misprint. Neutrals could not have asked more of Black Aces and Orlando Pirates.
Squad12 Oct 2026
Words at Black Aces training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Siphamandla Sabelo 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.
Williams Lorch 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.
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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Siphamandla Sabelo was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Every shape has positions in it and this one does not have his. Black Aces will either change the shape, change his job, or change his club, and he is waiting to hear which.
Kaizer Chiefs go through and Black Aces go home, 0‑7 the scoreline that did it. The dressing room will call the league the priority now, because that is what dressing rooms say.
0-7, and long before the end the away end had switched from encouragement to something considerably more pointed. Nobody rings a phone-in about losing narrowly.
The terraces14 Sep 2026
The stands have turned
“Enough is enough. We have watched this for months.” 7 of the 29 senior players walked off to it, and the message was not aimed at any one of them.
“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.
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.
Match9 Sep 2026
Nobody could stop scoring
7 goals. Both benches spent the second half looking at each other rather than at the pitch. Purists will complain about Black Aces and Kaizer Chiefs in equal measure; everybody else had a wonderful time.
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.
“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.
“I listened, I thought about it, and I am staying. That is the whole story.” The clubs had agreed a fee. Thamsanqa Vilakazi had not agreed to go, which turned out to be the part that mattered.
Boardroom7 Sep 2026
Deadline passes with 5 signed and 0 gone
That is the business done at Black Aces until the window opens again. Whether it was enough will be answered on Saturdays rather than in a column, and the first Saturday is close.
The clubs had agreed and the player had not. A snub, and a public one: Free State Stars keep him, and the supporters here are left wondering what he had heard about the place.
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.
Nobody makes a documentary about a hamstring and everybody in the game fears one. Black Aces will be careful with the return date, because the second one is always worse than the first.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Mamelodi Sundowns have kept their man, and Black Aces go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
At 2 goals adrift this was a formality, and the formality lasted right up until it did not. Black Aces found something the first half had given no notice of, and SuperSport United could not hold what they had.
A mark of 10.00 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 20-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
The offer from Free State Stars for Mandla Jali 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.
The clubs had agreed and the player had not. A snub, and a public one: Platinum Stars keep him, and the supporters here are left wondering what he had heard about the place.
Black Aces asked and Sturm Graz said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
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.