The hardest thing about being 19 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Kelvin Nkrumah did not need any: 7.88, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
Rodrigo Canario 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 had been thinking. Panos Armenakas 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.
At 19 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.
A 2‑0 win over Bechem United, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
There is a version of this player everybody suspected was in there, and on this evidence it is. 8.25, and no argument anywhere in the ground.
Player ratings28 Sep 2026
Mpho Mathekgane was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.00. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Bradley Mahlangu will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Platinum Stars the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Themba Mkhize 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.
Squad28 Sep 2026
Words at Platinum Stars training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Antonio Costa 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.
Squad28 Sep 2026
5 new faces, and Platinum Stars 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.
33 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Platinum Stars lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
2 goals, and the second was the one that settled it. Marked 8.37, and he could have had a third with better luck at the near post.
Player ratings7 Sep 2026
A brace, and Antonio Costa takes the afternoon — 8.21
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Antonio Costa provided it, and the 8.21 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
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.
Defending was optional and nobody took up the option. 7 goals between Platinum Stars and Free State Stars, and not one of the people who paid to be there will ask for the money back.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Antonio Costa 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.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 23-year-old it feels ownership of. Themba Furman 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.