Phakamani Mahlambi 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.
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.
Black Aces asked and Independiente said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
23 days, the scan says, and scans are kinder than reality. The fixtures in that window have just become somebody else’s job.
The dugout15 Feb 2027
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 1‑3 defeat, delivered by Andile Jali to a room that had heard them before.
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 Simphiwe Selepe is on it.
The one version of being left out a player cannot argue with, and the one he takes worst. Somebody else has been better and the team sheet says so, in public, every week until it changes.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Black Aces can pretend not to have heard.
Black Aces had done everything except persuade the man himself. He stays at Gimnasia La Plata, and the manager goes back to the drawing board with the money still in the bank.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Black Aces 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. Estudiantes have kept their man, and Black Aces go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Andile Jali after 0‑1, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
Two goals and a mark of 8.77 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
“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 The request is on a desk at Black Aces, and it is not being withdrawn.
Phakamani Mahlambi and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad4 Jan 2027
Words at Black Aces training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Itumeleng Zwane 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.
Black Aces asked and Cardiff City said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Teboho Ngcobo. 2‑0 against Polokwane City, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Four weeks in which nobody in the division did his job better. The award goes on a shelf and the player goes back into the side, which is the order Black Aces prefer.
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.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Black Aces will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Jayden Adams 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.
It happens to all of them and it is still the hardest paragraph a local paper has to write. 34 years old, 3 points down on where he was, and a body that has started charging interest on a career.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Gift Mabunda was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“The manager did not use many words, and he did not need to.” Gift Mabunda has his answer from Black Aces; what he does with it is the next window’s story.
Something was said to Tsiki Ntsabeleng and then it happened. In this industry that passes for remarkable, and the dressing room noticed faster than any supporter could.
Nobody at Black Aces 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.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Gift Mabunda trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Black Aces will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Black Aces this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Phakamani Mahlambi was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
He is 18 and the ground already sings his name, which is a thing that happens to local boys and almost never to signings. Everything from here is measured against an affection he did nothing to earn except be from here.
“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.
The dugout28 Sep 2026
The view from the dugout
“We controlled it. There were spells I did not like and we will look at them, but the group showed me something.” Andile Jali, on a 3‑0 win that he was already picking apart on the walk to the press room.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Black Aces will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
Phakamani Mahlambi 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.
“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.
Squad21 Sep 2026
7 new faces, and Black Aces are still learning each other
A squad rebuilt inside one window pays for it in a currency nobody budgets for. The football is not worse than the sum of the players; it is worse than the sum of the players who have played together before.