Marked for Sifiso Dala
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Market4 Jan 2027
Sifiso Dala hands in a written request
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Platinum Stars can pretend not to have heard.
Market4 Jan 2027
Legia come back empty-handed
The bid was some way short and Platinum Stars did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Player ratings4 Jan 2027
Successful dribbles: 20. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad4 Jan 2027
Mandla Mokotjo 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.
Player ratings4 Jan 2027
A performance of 8.53 does not come along often, and when it does the rest of the team becomes scenery. He was magnificent.
Player ratings4 Jan 2027
Headers, blocks, tackles, interceptions — 19 of them, and not one goal behind him. The sort of performance that never makes a highlight reel and wins football matches.
Player ratings4 Jan 2027
Headers, blocks, tackles, interceptions — 17 of them, and not one goal behind him. The sort of performance that never makes a highlight reel and wins football matches.
Squad4 Jan 2027
The manager makes an example of Evidence Dala
“If you cannot run for the shirt, somebody else will wear it.” No name was used and none was needed; every player in that room knew who it was for.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Market7 Dec 2026
Sifiso Dala hands in a written request
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Platinum Stars can pretend not to have heard.
Player ratings7 Dec 2026
Successful dribbles: 29. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Match5 Dec 2026
No end in sight to Platinum Stars's wait for a win
6 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at Platinum Stars has to find a result from somewhere.
Match5 Dec 2026
Chippa United left with the points after a 0‑1 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
Squad7 Dec 2026
“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.
Squad7 Dec 2026
The captaincy has been taken off May Mahlangu. Platinum Stars will call it a decision about the team; a dressing room reads it as a verdict on a man.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Match7 Nov 2026
1‑4 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.
Market9 Nov 2026
“I have given everything here and I need a new challenge.” The request is formal, and the relationship will never be quite the same again.
Player ratings9 Nov 2026
Successful dribbles: 21. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad9 Nov 2026
Mandla Mokotjo 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.
Squad9 Nov 2026
“If you cannot run for the shirt, somebody else will wear it.” No name was used and none was needed; every player in that room knew who it was for.
Player ratings9 Nov 2026
A performance of 8.05 does not come along often, and when it does the rest of the team becomes scenery. He was magnificent.
Boardroom9 Nov 2026
Nobody left the Platinum Stars dressing room in a hurry
The door stayed shut a long time after the final whistle. What was said in there is between them; whether it worked is between them and Saturday.
Squad9 Nov 2026
Whether it was the goalkeeper or the ten in front of him is the argument that will fill every conversation in town this week. 5 saves does not settle it either way.
Player ratings9 Nov 2026
5.66 on the card. Some afternoons a footballer looks like a man who has only just been introduced to the game, and this was one of them.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Market12 Oct 2026
“I have given everything here and I need a new challenge.” The request is formal, and the relationship will never be quite the same again.
Match10 Oct 2026
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.
Player ratings12 Oct 2026
Successful dribbles: 20. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Squad12 Oct 2026
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Platinum Stars this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Match10 Oct 2026
Polokwane City left with the points after a 0‑2 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
Squad12 Oct 2026
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Thamsanqa Modiba, and the manager let it.
Player ratings12 Oct 2026
Shots: 10, enough of them from close enough that a striker in form scores two. He is not a striker in form.
Player ratings12 Oct 2026
Marked 5.74, and generously at that. Nothing came off, and by the end the crowd had stopped expecting it to.
Market12 Oct 2026
“There is a gap, and pretending there is not helps nobody.” Neither side has moved, and the calendar is working for exactly one of them.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Player ratings14 Sep 2026
Successful dribbles: 36. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Squad14 Sep 2026
2 kept out in the shoot-out, and a stadium that will still be describing them in twenty years. A goalkeeper only needs one of these to be remembered forever.
Match9 Sep 2026
Out, 0‑0 to Orlando Pirates, and the long argument about which of the small moments decided it. The league is all there is now, and everybody knows it.
Match12 Sep 2026
The unbeaten run reaches 7. Some of them were wins and some were escapes, but a side that refuses to lose is a side other dressing rooms talk about.
Squad14 Sep 2026
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Platinum Stars this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Player ratings14 Sep 2026
Defensive actions: 20, and a clean sheet at the end of it. A centre-half's best afternoons look like nothing happening, which is precisely the point.
Squad14 Sep 2026
“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.
Player ratings14 Sep 2026
Sifiso Dala misses from twelve yards
It was his to settle and he did not settle it. A long walk back to the halfway line, and a considerably longer week.
Player ratings14 Sep 2026
Some games turn on a moment; this one turned on a man. 7.45 on the card, and the Platinum Stars support went home talking about one name.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Player ratings7 Sep 2026
Successful dribbles: 26. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Market7 Sep 2026
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Platinum Stars can pretend not to have heard.
Squad7 Sep 2026
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Platinum Stars this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad7 Sep 2026
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Sifiso Dala, and the manager let it.
Boardroom7 Sep 2026
Wages eat 98% of everything Platinum Stars earn
There is a figure at which a wage bill stops being ambitious and becomes the reason nothing else is possible, and this club has reached it. Nothing is left over for a transfer, a stand or a rainy afternoon.
Match5 Sep 2026
It finished 1‑1, and it somehow always looked like it would. One of those afternoons where the table moves less than the tempers.
Squad7 Sep 2026
“Ask me in the summer. I will know before anybody else does.” He is 34 with 1 appearances behind him, and Platinum Stars have to plan for both answers.
Squad7 Sep 2026
At 37 he is in the side on merit and somebody else is watching from the bench. Places at Platinum Stars are won quietly and lost loudly.
Market7 Sep 2026
“We are a long way apart, and pretending otherwise helps nobody.” Neither side is close, and the calendar is not on the club's side.