Marked for Khama Phiri
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Market22 Feb 2027
Marcel Ninga 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 Foullah Edifice can pretend not to have heard.
Match20 Feb 2027
No end in sight to Foullah Edifice's wait for a win
7 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at Foullah Edifice has to find a result from somewhere.
Squad22 Feb 2027
“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.
Match20 Feb 2027
4 matches, no goals, and a training ground that has tried everything. It will end — droughts always do — but nobody at Foullah Edifice can tell you which week it ends in.
Squad22 Feb 2027
Constant Matoingue 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.
Squad22 Feb 2027
Words at Foullah Edifice training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Kita 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.
Player ratings22 Feb 2027
Successful dribbles: 18. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Squad22 Feb 2027
Too much change too quickly at Foullah Edifice
5 signings in three months. Every one of them may be an upgrade and the team can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild that never appears in the transfer-window verdicts.
Player ratings22 Feb 2027
Some games turn on a moment; this one turned on a man. 7.19 on the card, and the Foullah Edifice support went home talking about one name.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Market1 Feb 2027
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Foullah Edifice can pretend not to have heard.
Squad1 Feb 2027
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Foullah Edifice this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad1 Feb 2027
Kita 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.
Market1 Feb 2027
Both sides expect a conversation in the coming days. Foullah Edifice will name a price, and everything after that is arithmetic.
Market1 Feb 2027
8 months to run and not a word offered. A club that lets the calendar negotiate for it usually ends up losing to the calendar.
Squad1 Feb 2027
“Ask me in the summer. I will know before anybody else does.” He is 39 with 2 appearances behind him, and Foullah Edifice have to plan for both answers.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Player ratings18 Jan 2027
Successful dribbles: 29. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Market18 Jan 2027
“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 Foullah Edifice, and it is not being withdrawn.
Squad18 Jan 2027
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Foullah Edifice this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad18 Jan 2027
Kita 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.
Match16 Jan 2027
1‑1, and both dressing rooms will call it two points lost. A draw that asked plenty of questions and answered none of them.
Squad18 Jan 2027
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Khama Phiri, and the manager let it.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad30 Nov 2026
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Foullah Edifice will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Match28 Nov 2026
0‑4 against CotonTchad, and no complaints that would survive the replay. The manager spoke about character afterwards; the terraces used shorter words.
Match28 Nov 2026
No end in sight to Foullah Edifice's wait for a win
5 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at Foullah Edifice has to find a result from somewhere.
Match28 Nov 2026
4 games without scoring. Strikers stop looking up, midfielders take the extra touch, and every shot that clears the bar is followed by a groan that has been building since the last goal.
Squad30 Nov 2026
Abdurahmon Sulaymonov 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.
Squad30 Nov 2026
Yves Allarabaye 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.
Squad30 Nov 2026
“Some mornings you wake up and you are still a long way from everything you know.” It is not the football and it never was; Foullah Edifice are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
Boardroom30 Nov 2026
The music was off and the showers ran late. What was said in that dressing room stays there, but Saturday will publish the minutes.
Boardroom30 Nov 2026
Wages eat 102% of everything Foullah Edifice 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.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad9 Nov 2026
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Foullah Edifice will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Match7 Nov 2026
AS Algoy go through and Foullah Edifice go home, 0‑2 the scoreline that did it. The dressing room will call the league the priority now, because that is what dressing rooms say.
Player ratings9 Nov 2026
Benjamin Merba, 20, plays like he has been here for years — 8.09
A mark of 8.09 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 20-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
Squad9 Nov 2026
“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” Foullah Edifice may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.
Player ratings9 Nov 2026
Yaya Karim runs at them all day
Successful dribbles: 26. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Squad9 Nov 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 Foullah Edifice this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Squad12 Oct 2026
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Foullah Edifice will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Player ratings12 Oct 2026
Successful dribbles: 28. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad12 Oct 2026
“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.
Squad12 Oct 2026
Yves Allarabaye is a better footballer than he was
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 23 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
Squad12 Oct 2026
At 24 the improving is meant to be over. It is not: 4 points better than the mark taken at the start of the year, which is the sort of thing that happens to players who take the boring parts of the job seriously.
Match10 Oct 2026
Three points for Foullah Edifice, 1‑0 the final word against AS PSI in a contest settled by the finer margins.
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Match19 Sep 2026
Nobody wants to play Platinum Stars right now
7 wins in a row changes how opponents warm up: quieter, more glances across. Runs end, everybody knows that — but nobody in this dressing room is planning for it.
Player ratings21 Sep 2026
A brace, and Itumeleng Mokotjo takes the afternoon — 8.42
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Itumeleng Mokotjo provided it, and the 8.42 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Squad21 Sep 2026
Sifiso Ngcobo 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 ratings21 Sep 2026
Marked 8.07 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
Player ratings21 Sep 2026
Successful dribbles: 16. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad21 Sep 2026
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.
Squad21 Sep 2026
One booking too many, and Sifiso Ngcobo sits out. Platinum Stars lose him for the sort of avoidable reason that makes a manager's week longer.
Squad21 Sep 2026
The division's best last weekend was a Platinum Stars man
It is a small honour and it is not nothing: somebody watched every match in the division and decided that Itumeleng Mokotjo was the best thing in any of them.
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Match5 Sep 2026
Free State Stars will want this one forgotten quickly: 3‑0, every duel lost, and a long ride home. Platinum Stars were ruthless in the way good sides are ruthless.
Squad7 Sep 2026
The match ball belongs to Itumeleng Mokotjo, whose 3 goals turned a difficult afternoon into a procession.
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.
Match5 Sep 2026
Momentum is a hard thing to buy and an easy thing to lose, and right now Platinum Stars have 4 straight wins of it.
Market7 Sep 2026
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.
The terraces7 Sep 2026
The crowd has taken to Mandla Tau
At 22 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.
Player ratings7 Sep 2026
Ninety minutes of Itumeleng Mokotjo at his very best
Marked 8.36. Players have careers without a single afternoon like this in them, and he has just had one in front of everybody at Platinum Stars.
Squad7 Sep 2026
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Siyanda Khumalo, and the manager let it.
Squad7 Sep 2026
A place in the month's best eleven for Itumeleng Mokotjo
Four or five weekends of consistency, judged against everybody in the division doing his job. Itumeleng Mokotjo has come out of that comparison in the side, and Platinum Stars have had the benefit of every one of those afternoons.
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Player ratings31 Aug 2026
Successful dribbles: 47. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Market31 Aug 2026
Hatayspor 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 ratings31 Aug 2026
A brace, and Itumeleng Mokotjo takes the afternoon — 8.31
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Itumeleng Mokotjo provided it, and the 8.31 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Market31 Aug 2026
“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.
Match29 Aug 2026
Momentum is a hard thing to buy and an easy thing to lose, and right now Platinum Stars have 3 straight wins of it.
Squad31 Aug 2026
Evidence Mothiba 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.
Squad31 Aug 2026
Mandla Tau gets it from the manager
“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.
Squad31 Aug 2026
Khama Phiri knocks on the manager’s door
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Khama Phiri trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad3 Aug 2026
Sifiso Ngcobo 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.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Words at Platinum Stars training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Itumeleng Mokotjo 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.
Squad3 Aug 2026
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Khama Phiri and Platinum Stars agree another 2 years.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Sifiso Ngcobo knocks on the manager’s door
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Sifiso Ngcobo trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Market3 Aug 2026
Gift Jali told to find a new club
“They were honest with me, and I would rather know.” Gift Jali has been informed he is not in the manager's thinking at Platinum Stars.