The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around Platinum Stars people have started saying his name in the past tense.
The clubs have shaken hands with Orlando Pirates; the player has not yet. Personal terms are next, and personal terms are where more deals die than anybody prints.
“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 The request is on a desk at Platinum Stars, and it is not being withdrawn.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Evidence Erasmus is 21, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Andile Mokoena 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 name of Luther Mothiba has come up in conversations Platinum Stars were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Bongani Mothiba was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Orlando Pirates have kept their man, and Platinum Stars go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Nkosi Gumede 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.
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 Bryn Deeley has written the date down.
“I have done everything asked of me in training and it has not changed a thing on a Saturday.” The most familiar complaint in football, and one Platinum Stars will have to answer with minutes or with a transfer.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Khama Jali trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Nkosi Gumede 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.
3 matches, no goals, and a training ground that has tried everything. It will end — droughts always do — but nobody at Platinum Stars can tell you which week it ends in.
Successful dribbles: 18. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
“The supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 0‑3, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
Andile Mokoena 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 system has changed and his position has not. A footballer can improve his form; he cannot improve the manager’s formation, and that is the whole of the problem.
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.
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Mothobi Mvala’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and Platinum Stars needing him to play as if none of it matters.
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 Williams Khune has written the date down.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Platinum Stars, and both men came out saying it was fine.
He looks like a man who lives here now rather than one who is working here. It took most of a season, and at Platinum Stars the difference is visible from the back of the stand.