The mood at Platinum Stars has turned into something else
Supporters who sing when it goes badly are supporters. Supporters who gather afterwards are a problem, and everybody inside the building knows which of the two this now is.
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.
12 days since the seat came open, a list of names doing the rounds, and nobody has signed anything. Every week this drags on the shortlist gets shorter.
Squad13 May 2030
Words at Platinum Stars training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Sifiso Mlungwana 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.
45 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.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Thobani Gumede will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Platinum Stars the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Walid Zamoum 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.
It has stopped being a mood in the stands and started being something organised. Boards can ignore a bad atmosphere for a long time; they cannot ignore this stage of it for very long at all.
Walid Zamoum 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.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Platinum Stars know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
In brief
Player ratingsOff the bench and decisive: Themba Erasmus
What was said behind closed doors has now been said in front of a microphone. Everybody at Platinum Stars can do the arithmetic, including the man it is aimed at.
The official line will be that it was routine. It was not routine, the timing says so, and every person in that room knows what the next bad result costs.
“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.
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.
Careers are supposed to plateau and then decline, and the players who ignore that are always the ones who were listening on the training ground. 3 points of it, over months, at an age where the direction normally only goes one way.
Everyone has stopped pretending: Bidvest Wits will make the call about Percy Erasmus this week. Platinum Stars have a number in mind, and the number is not shy.
None of them will be seen by anybody outside the training ground for three years, most of them will never play a senior match, and one of them might change the club. That is the whole proposition, and it is why academies exist.
“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.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Platinum Stars is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Walid Zamoum 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.
Squad25 Jun 2029
Percy Erasmus has improved at 24, which nobody expected
Careers are supposed to plateau and then decline, and the players who ignore that are always the ones who were listening on the training ground. 3 points of it, over months, at an age where the direction normally only goes one way.
Squad25 Jun 2029
Words at Platinum Stars training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Kota Kuwabara 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.
The words a physio says slowly. 15 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.
The board have said in public what they had been saying in private. Results between now and the next meeting decide it, and everybody in the building knows the arithmetic.
“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.
The official line will be that it was routine. It was not routine, the timing says so, and every person in that room knows what the next bad result costs.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Platinum Stars have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
“The easiest signature of my career.” Themba Ngcobo and Platinum Stars agree another 3 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.