Words at Kaizer Chiefs training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Asanele Velebayi 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.
The paperwork is done long before the player is. Mpho Mathebula has agreed terms to come here when his current deal runs out, which means Kaizer Chiefs have spent a summer's transfer budget on a phone call.
“The easiest signature of my career.” Itumeleng Mothiba and Kaizer Chiefs agree another 4 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
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 Mfundo Vilakazi is on it.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Mfundo Vilakazi trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
A conversation in the manager’s office, and a commitment that came out of it. Promises like that are cheap to make and expensive to break, and Pule Mmodi has written the date down.
A new face in his position and a shirt he thought he owned suddenly up for discussion. Kaizer Chiefs have promised nothing, which is what clubs promise at this stage.
4 months left, and both sides know what that means: every week without a signature, the fee Kaizer Chiefs could ask drops and the wages Pule Mmodi can ask rise.
Luther Zwane 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.
Squad26 Jul 2027
Keagan Mphela 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.
A loan enquiry to Mamelodi Sundowns: cover, or a look at somebody the club cannot afford to buy yet. Either way the answer will come back inside the week.
$4.7M is a serious amount of money and it does not play centre-forward. Everybody in the dressing room knows who used to be looked at when it went wrong.
“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.
He is going to Maritzburg United, the club has $4.7M it did not have on Friday, and the phone-ins have already decided how they feel about that. Selling well and selling somebody they loved are not the same skill.
Everything agreed with Orlando Pirates, everything agreed with the player; a doctor is the only person left to persuade. The photograph is a day or two away.
The clubs had agreed and the player had not. A snub, and a public one: Orlando Pirates 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 Free State Stars this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Unión de Santa Fe have kept their man, and Free State Stars go back to a list with one name crossed off 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.
In brief
The dugoutThe manager has not finished forgetting Elia Guerra's mistake
Position 14 and 26 points, and the table gets read bottom-up in this part of town. The calendar has stopped being a schedule and started being a countdown.
“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.
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.
Luther Mothiba 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 Cameron Carnell was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
A conversation in the manager’s office, and a commitment that came out of it. Promises like that are cheap to make and expensive to break, and Junaid Sait has written the date down.
Bidvest Wits arrived with $830.0K 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.
“I listened, I thought about it, and I am staying. That is the whole story.” The clubs had agreed a fee. Luther Mothiba had not agreed to go, which turned out to be the part that mattered.
The offer from Apollon for Khama Phiri 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.
Ramahlwe Dala has gone, the accounts have $830.0K 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.
Luther Mothiba 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.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 10 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
The offer from Ajax Cape Town for Itumeleng Mothiba 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 deal with Orlando Pirates is done in every sense but the one that puts him on the pitch. Nothing goes wrong at this stage, except on the occasions when it does.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Teboho Erasmus was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The chances are being made and something is happening between the making and the finishing. 3 matches now, and the anxiety in the ground arrives a little earlier every week.
At 21 he is being sung about by people twice his age, which is an affection a signing has to earn over years and a local kid gets for turning up. It is also the hardest thing in football to live up to.
Maritzburg United arrived with $2.7M 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.
Lebogang Dala has gone, the accounts have $2.7M 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.
Luther Mothiba 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 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.
Successful dribbles: 17. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
The dugout17 Aug 2026
The view from the dugout
“We will look at it, we will learn from it, and we go again.” The three sentences every manager keeps for a 0‑2 defeat, delivered by Keagan Mokotjo to a room that had heard them before.