Bloemfontein Celtic have gone to Ajax Cape Town with a bid, and the supporters have gone to the internet with an opinion about it. Whether either changes anything is up to the selling club.
Jordan Lotomba 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Kutlwano Letlhaku 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.
Bloemfontein Celtic asked and Brisbane Roar said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Thobani Gumede is 20, and Bloemfontein Celtic have signed him for the player he will be rather than the one he is. The first team can wait; the point of a deal like this is the years it buys.
“I did not come here to warm up in front of people.” He is out of contract eventually, he is old enough to count the weeks, and Bloemfontein Celtic will have to give him a reason to stay or an exit.
Every shape has positions in it and this one does not have his. Bloemfontein Celtic will either change the shape, change his job, or change his club, and he is waiting to hear which.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Luke Baartman is 21, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Jordan Lotomba 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.
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.
Bloemfontein Celtic had done everything except persuade the man himself. He stays at FC Copenhagen, and the manager goes back to the drawing board with the money still in the bank.
The rules permit it and it stings anyway. Comfort Ngubo has agreed terms with Maritzburg United for the summer, and until then he pulls on this shirt as a player who has already chosen his next one.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Landon Emenalo is 19, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Kutlwano Letlhaku 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.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Brisbane Roar have kept their man, and Bloemfontein Celtic go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
35 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Bloemfontein Celtic lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
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 had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Bloemfontein Celtic, and both men came out saying it was fine.
42 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Bloemfontein Celtic lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Jordan Lotomba 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 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.
Jordan Lotomba 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.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Mpho Moletsane is 23, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Kutlwano Letlhaku was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Bloemfontein Celtic, and both men came out saying it was fine.
88 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Bloemfontein Celtic lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Position 3, 34 points, and the result everyone checks first is now theirs. The word is still not being said around the ground, which is how you know everyone is thinking it.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Solly Khunyedi 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 first defeat in 4 matches. The manager will say it had to come; the dressing room will say it did not have to come against Golden Arrows; the supporters will say both, in that order, all week.
Two goals and a mark of 9.20 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Haissem Hassan provided it, and the 8.46 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
The hardest thing about being 20 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Kutlwano Letlhaku did not need any: 8.31, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
4 wins on the spin now, and the question has changed from whether the run ends to who ends it. Confidence like this cannot be bought; it has to be earned exactly this way.
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Samkelo Mzolo has just signed for Bloemfontein Celtic, and for once the answer mattered.
Defending was optional and nobody took up the option. 7 goals between Bloemfontein Celtic and Black Aces, and not one of the people who paid to be there will ask for the money back.
Marked 9.58 — 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.