Marked for Kermit Dala
From our football correspondent
Steady
Match15 Mar 2032
42 points on the board and a place in the leading group. Nobody at the ground is saying the word out loud yet.
Market15 Mar 2032
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Rapid Wien is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Squad15 Mar 2032
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Rapid Wien this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad15 Mar 2032
Bendegúz Bolla 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.
Squad15 Mar 2032
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Kermit Dala and Rapid Wien agree another 4 years.
Squad15 Mar 2032
Bendegúz Bolla has become a man the manager trusts
Nobody at Rapid Wien will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market30 Jun 2031
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at Rapid Wien heard it as anything else.
Squad30 Jun 2031
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Rapid Wien this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Market30 Jun 2031
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Rapid Wien they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Squad30 Jun 2031
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.
Squad30 Jun 2031
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
Market30 Jun 2031
Rapid Wien have made Jannes Horn available for transfer. A career at this club is over in all but paperwork.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad10 Mar 2031
A knee injury of the worst kind for Ousmane Diawara
46 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Rapid Wien lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Market10 Mar 2031
“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.
Squad10 Mar 2031
“I was told what my role would be, and I signed on that basis. It has not happened.” A grievance with a date attached is the hardest kind to settle.
Market10 Mar 2031
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Rapid Wien is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Squad10 Mar 2031
Matthias Seidl 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.
Squad10 Mar 2031
Tobias Gulliksen 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.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad13 Jan 2031
Ethan Chislett damages knee ligaments — 136 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 136 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.
Player ratings13 Jan 2031
A brace, and Hlompho Furman takes the afternoon — 8.79
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Hlompho Furman provided it, and the 8.79 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Player ratings13 Jan 2031
Kagiso Malinga, 36, rolls back the years — 8.34
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.34 at 36, and nobody on the pitch was better.
Market13 Jan 2031
The offer from Maritzburg United for Morgan Mphela 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.
Match11 Jan 2031
Momentum is a hard thing to buy and an easy thing to lose, and right now Bloemfontein Celtic have 3 straight wins of it.
Squad13 Jan 2031
Gift Dolly in a row with a teammate
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Bloemfontein Celtic this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad13 Jan 2031
Itumeleng Erasmus 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.
Match11 Jan 2031
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Hlompho Furman. 3‑1 against Black Aces, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
The terraces13 Jan 2031
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 21-year-old it feels ownership of. Kermit Mabunda 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.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Player ratings6 Jan 2031
Successful dribbles: 66. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad6 Jan 2031
A fracture rules Ronwen Williams out for 99 days
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Mamelodi Sundowns will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Market6 Jan 2031
The offer from University of Pretoria for Siyabonga Mabena 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.
Squad6 Jan 2031
An individual honour is a strange thing in a team game, and the best of them are never argued with. He has had the sort of year that ends with his name being read out, and Mamelodi Sundowns have had the benefit of it.
Market6 Jan 2031
“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.
Squad6 Jan 2031
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Mamelodi Sundowns this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Market6 Jan 2031
A conversation is coming this week. Mamelodi Sundowns will put a number on him, and from there it stops being football and becomes arithmetic.
Squad6 Jan 2031
11 goals and a season average of 7.33. Form like that gets noticed well beyond this town.
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Match28 Dec 2030
78 matches unbeaten here. Every visiting manager is asked about it in the week before, which is precisely why it keeps going.
Player ratings30 Dec 2030
Successful dribbles: 58. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Squad30 Dec 2030
A fracture rules Ronwen Williams out for 108 days
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Mamelodi Sundowns will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Match28 Dec 2030
9 wins on the spin now, and the question has changed from whether the run ends to who ends it. Confidence like this cannot be bought; it has to be earned exactly this way.
Match30 Dec 2030
Position 2, 54 points, and the result everyone checks first is now theirs. The word is still not being said around the ground, which is how you know everyone is thinking it.
Squad30 Dec 2030
A season average of 7.36 with 17 goals behind it. Opponents have started planning around him, which is the sincerest compliment football pays.
Market30 Dec 2030
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Mamelodi Sundowns is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Market30 Dec 2030
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at Mamelodi Sundowns heard it as anything else.
Squad30 Dec 2030
Ronwen Williams 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.
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Match30 Nov 2030
76 without defeat on their own grass. The pitch has not changed; the crowd has — louder earlier, and quicker to sense when the opposition would rather be somewhere else.
Player ratings2 Dec 2030
Successful dribbles: 53. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Match27 Nov 2030
A 3‑0 win over Chippa United, a place in the next round, and the quiet arithmetic every supporter does on the walk home: how many more until a final?
Match30 Nov 2030
4‑0, and the margin flattered nobody — it could have carried another goal or two without complaint. Afternoons like this are why people keep coming.
Match2 Dec 2030
Position 2 and 42 points on the board. Nobody at the ground will say the word out loud yet, and everybody at the ground is thinking it.
Squad2 Dec 2030
3 goals in one afternoon from one man. The other players were also present, a witness confirmed.
Player ratings2 Dec 2030
A brace, and Jayden Adams takes the afternoon — 8.32
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Jayden Adams provided it, and the 8.32 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Match30 Nov 2030
5 wins on the spin now, and the question has changed from whether the run ends to who ends it. Confidence like this cannot be bought; it has to be earned exactly this way.
Market2 Dec 2030
The name of Gift Kekana has come up in conversations Mamelodi Sundowns were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.