13 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.
Free State Stars and Orlando Pirates have settled on $1.5M. The rest belongs to the player and his agent, and a supporter who has watched one of these before knows not to buy the shirt yet.
At 21 he is doing things this season that he could not do last season, and doing them every week. Form comes and goes; this has stayed long enough to be called something else.
Dean Zungu 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.
$130.0K was the most the club would pay and Chippa United were asking for more. Deals like this are revived in the last week of a window roughly half the time, and everybody involved knows it.
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.
Maritzburg United arrived with $3.0M and left with the best player in the building. The board will call it business; the queue at the ticket office will use other words.
12 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at Free State Stars has to find a result from somewhere.
“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.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 6 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
Erick Jali has gone, the accounts have $3.0M in them, and the supporters have the feeling of having been sold something themselves. Good business and a good decision are not always the same thing.
The clubs have shaken hands with Polokwane City; the player has not yet. Personal terms are next, and personal terms are where more deals die than anybody prints.
The offer went to Chippa United this week and it is theirs to answer. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loud the door closes.
He left as a boy and has come back still knowing where the away end is. Most signings have to be explained to a town; this one needed a photograph and nothing else.
Supporters who sing when it goes badly are supporters. Supporters who gather afterwards are a problem, and everybody inside the building knows which of the two this now is.
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and University of Pretoria waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Free State Stars is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
“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 Free State Stars, and it is not being withdrawn.
The accountants will call it good business and they will be right, which is not the point anybody outside the boardroom is making. Andile Mokoena was one of the reasons people came, and $56.0K does not replace that by itself.
The clubs have shaken hands with Polokwane City; the player has not yet. Personal terms are next, and personal terms are where more deals die than anybody prints.
Supporters who sing when it goes badly are supporters. Supporters who gather afterwards are a problem, and everybody inside the building knows which of the two this now is.
“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.
Nothing happens for months and then he simply arrives, at no cost, having signed a pre-contract while still turning out for somebody else. It is the least dramatic way to sign a footballer and frequently the shrewdest.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Zolani Nkombelo 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.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Free State Stars, and both men came out saying it was fine.
16 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Free State Stars lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Free State Stars will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
“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 Free State Stars, and it is not being withdrawn.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Free State Stars have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
“The easiest signature of my career.” Zolani Nkombelo and Free State Stars agree another 2 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Erick Jali 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.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Erick Jali trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
The words a physio says slowly. 24 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.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Free State Stars will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
A bad atmosphere can be waited out. A group of people meeting afterwards to decide what to do about it cannot, and everybody in the building knows which stage this is.
0‑3 to Bloemfontein Celtic, 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.
“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 Free State Stars, and it is not being withdrawn.
The last league game has been played and the table has stopped moving: 19 points. The summer begins on Monday, and so does the argument about what it all meant.
14 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at Free State Stars has to find a result from somewhere.
“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 Free State Stars, and it is not being withdrawn.
Two or more conceded in each of the last 4 matches. It is not one mistake repeating itself, which would be the easier thing to fix; it is a different one every week.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Daniele Cipriani 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.
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.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Daniele Cipriani 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.
“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.
The dugout5 Oct 2026
The manager’s verdict
“I am frustrated, honestly. We did enough to win and we did not win.” Erick Mothiba was not hiding it after 0‑0, and nobody in the Free State Stars dressing room was either.
“The manager did not use many words, and he did not need to.” Kermit Lorch has his answer from Free State Stars; what he does with it is the next window’s story.
It is a specific kind of quiet, a ground watching a winning position dissolve. Bidvest Wits kept coming because nothing stopped them, and Free State Stars will be asked about the last half hour all week.
The run now stands at 8, and the questions being asked around Free State Stars are no longer polite ones.
Player ratings28 Sep 2026
A brace, and Ronwen Dala takes the afternoon — 8.82
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Ronwen Dala provided it, and the 8.82 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Free State Stars have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Free State Stars is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Erick Jali 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 Daniele Cipriani was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.