Marked for Rushwin Dortley
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad5 Oct 2026
Rushwin Dortley damages knee ligaments — 19 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 19 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.
Squad5 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.
Match3 Oct 2026
Whatever happens, Kaizer Chiefs do not lose
8 games unbeaten now. Some were earned and some were survived, but a habit is forming — and habits are the hardest thing in football to play against.
Match3 Oct 2026
4 without a win now, and the ground has developed the special quiet of a crowd that expects the worst. One scrappy 1-0 would cure most of it; that is the maddening part.
Market5 Oct 2026
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Kaizer Chiefs is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Squad5 Oct 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 Kaizer Chiefs this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad5 Oct 2026
Takalani Mazhamba is a better footballer than he was
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 19 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.
Boardroom5 Oct 2026
Wages eat 142% of everything Kaizer Chiefs 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.
Player ratings5 Oct 2026
Shots: 8, not one of them in. A centre forward is paid for one thing, and on this evidence he has forgotten which thing it is.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad28 Sep 2026
A knee injury of the worst kind for Rushwin Dortley
29 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Kaizer Chiefs lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Player ratings28 Sep 2026
Mfundo Vilakazi, 20, plays like he has been here for years — 8.53
A mark of 8.53 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.
Player ratings28 Sep 2026
Age has not caught Pule Mmodi yet — 8.32
At 33 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.32 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Player ratings28 Sep 2026
Up for the corner, and Given Msimango delivers — 7.76
Centre-halves are allowed forward twice a season and are judged on what they do when they get there. Given Msimango scored, was marked 7.76, and got back before anybody noticed he had gone.
Player ratings28 Sep 2026
A chastening introduction for Gopolang Taunyane — 5.64
It is a hard way to meet a crowd. Marked 5.64 on the day he was handed the shirt, and the important thing now is what the next one looks like.
Match26 Sep 2026
The unbeaten run reaches 7. Some of them were wins and some were escapes, but a side that refuses to lose is a side other dressing rooms talk about.
Squad28 Sep 2026
Brandon Petersen 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
Imaad Hendricks is a better footballer than he was
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 19 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.
Match26 Sep 2026
6 goals. Both benches spent the second half looking at each other rather than at the pitch. Purists will complain about Kaizer Chiefs and Polokwane City in equal measure; everybody else had a wonderful time.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad21 Sep 2026
Rushwin Dortley damages knee ligaments — 37 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 37 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.
Market21 Sep 2026
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Kaizer Chiefs is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Squad21 Sep 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 Kaizer Chiefs this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad21 Sep 2026
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Muhammad Bower is 19, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Match19 Sep 2026
Hard to beat is not the same as winning, but 6 matches without defeat is a foundation Kaizer Chiefs did not have in the autumn.
Squad21 Sep 2026
Words at Kaizer Chiefs training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Mfundo Vilakazi 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 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.
Player ratings21 Sep 2026
Marked 7.44 on an afternoon he ran from the first whistle to the last. Whatever else went wrong, Kaizer Chiefs had the best player on the pitch.
Player ratings21 Sep 2026
Shots: 4, not one of them in. A centre forward is paid for one thing, and on this evidence he has forgotten which thing it is.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad14 Sep 2026
A knee injury of the worst kind for Rushwin Dortley
45 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Kaizer Chiefs lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Match9 Sep 2026
A 2‑1 win over Black Aces, and the draw for the next round can be watched with some interest for once.
Match9 Sep 2026
There is no crueller way to lose a football match. Kaizer Chiefs scored in the 92th minute, the restart barely happened, and the away end was still standing when the whistle went.
Market14 Sep 2026
The offer was not close and it was refused without much discussion. Whether the second one is refused as quickly is another matter.
Player ratings14 Sep 2026
Successful dribbles: 23. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad14 Sep 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 Kaizer Chiefs this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Words at Kaizer Chiefs training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Lebohang Maboe 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 terraces14 Sep 2026
At 23 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 ratings14 Sep 2026
A performance of 8.83 does not come along often, and when it does the rest of the team becomes scenery. He was magnificent.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad7 Sep 2026
Rushwin Dortley damages knee ligaments — 53 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 53 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.
Player ratings7 Sep 2026
Two goals and a mark of 8.41 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Market7 Sep 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 Kaizer Chiefs, and it is not being withdrawn.
Match5 Sep 2026
5 matches without a win for Kaizer Chiefs
The run now stands at 5, and the questions being asked around Kaizer Chiefs are no longer polite ones.
Market7 Sep 2026
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Takalani Mazhamba will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Kaizer Chiefs the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Squad7 Sep 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 Kaizer Chiefs this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Lebohang Maboe 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.
The terraces7 Sep 2026
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.
Squad7 Sep 2026
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Zitha Kwinika, and the manager let it.