“I have ambitions, and I would like the club to share them.” Nobody has asked to leave and nobody has been shown the door — but a player chooses that sentence carefully, and a boardroom hears it exactly as it was meant.
The injury that keeps coming back, keeps being rushed back from, and quietly costs more careers than the dramatic ones. 14 days is the estimate; the honest figure depends on whether anybody is patient.
Successful dribbles: 50. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Player ratings21 Dec 2026
Morgan Mkhize, 21, plays like he has been here for years — 8.08
A mark of 8.08 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 21-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at Bloemfontein Celtic heard it as anything else.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 21-year-old it feels ownership of. Morgan Mkhize has it now, and everything he does for the rest of his time here will be measured against the goodwill he was handed for free.
Marked 8.50 — 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.
Squad21 Dec 2026
Itumeleng Tau 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.
There is no complaint available here and everybody involved knows it, which does not make the walk to the bench any shorter. Form is the only currency in football that cannot be borrowed against.
1‑4 to Mamelodi Sundowns, 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.
The terraces14 Dec 2026
The ground has had enough
“We travel everywhere and we get this.” 5 of the 23 senior players heard it walking off, and the ones who did not hear it were not playing.
Clubs make promises constantly and the page usually only hears about them when they are broken. This one was honoured, and the dressing room noticed that faster than any supporter did.
Beaten 4 times, with 4 saves for company. Goalkeepers carry these scorelines on their record whoever actually caused them, which is the quiet injustice of the job.
Nobody at Bloemfontein Celtic is suggesting he is out of form. The manager simply wanted somebody with a different set of qualities for ninety specific minutes, and there is nothing a player can train to fix that.
Morgan Mkhize 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.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Hlompho Dala. 1‑0 against Free State Stars, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Itumeleng 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.
Player ratings16 Nov 2026
Hlompho Dala was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.09. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Bloemfontein Celtic will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Bloemfontein Celtic have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
“I have ambitions, and I would like the club to share them.” Nobody has asked to leave and nobody has been shown the door — but a player chooses that sentence carefully, and a boardroom hears it exactly as it was meant.
Marked 8.33 — 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.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Kermit Zungu signs something — a contract at Bloemfontein Celtic or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at Bloemfontein Celtic heard it as anything else.
Morgan Mkhize 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 had been thinking. Itumeleng 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.