34 points, and the rest of the division looking up. Every side that finishes first spends the season pretending it is not thinking about it, and this one has started pretending.
Thabiso Lebitso 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.
The fixture the rest of the division is looking forward to more than either of the sides in it. Both know a win changes the season and a defeat does not end it, which is what makes it hard to play.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Luther Phiri was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Sipho Mbule’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and SuperSport United needing him to play as if none of it matters.
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Luther Phiri is on it.
Nothing in writing and nothing in public: a word about playing time, given face to face at SuperSport United. The team sheets over the next month will show whether it was worth having.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at SuperSport United, and both men came out saying it was fine.
6 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.
Player ratings14 Sep 2026
Luther Phiri, 19, plays like he has been here for years — 8.28
A mark of 8.28 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 19-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
At 34 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 7.87 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what SuperSport United can pretend not to have heard.
The fee was agreed and the flight was looked at — and then the phone stopped ringing. Orlando Pirates moved on, Itumeleng Kekana reports back to SuperSport United, and everybody pretends Monday is just Monday.
Marked 9.68 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
4‑1, and the margin flattered nobody — it could have carried another goal or two without complaint. Afternoons like this are why people keep coming.
Player ratings24 Aug 2026
A brace, and Lamin Jawo takes the afternoon — 9.16
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Lamin Jawo provided it, and the 9.16 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what SuperSport United can pretend not to have heard.
Kaizer Chiefs have accepted the money. What SuperSport United do not yet have is the man, and between here and the photograph is a conversation about wages that both sides are dreading.
The offer from ES Ben Aknoun for Lebogang Billiat 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.
Everything agreed with Independiente Medellin, everything agreed with the player; a doctor is the only person left to persuade. The photograph is a day or two away.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Kermit Tau 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.