While the Betway Premiership got on with its weekend, the bigger South African football story of the week happened off the pitch, and it came in two parts.
The first is the one supporters have been waiting on. SAFA announced on Tuesday the return of Pitso Mosimane as Bafana Bafana head coach, according to reporting carried on our wire, three and a half weeks after he was named the preferred candidate of the association's National Executive Committee. Whatever you think of the process that got there, the appointment itself needs no selling to anyone who watched him work in this country. It is the most recognisable name in South African coaching taking the most scrutinised job in South African football.
The second part is heavier. Both the Washington Post and Arab News report that Danny Jordaan has been re-elected as head of the South African Football Association while facing fraud charges. Those two facts sitting in the same sentence is the story. A federation choosing continuity at a moment when continuity is exactly what a section of the public is questioning is not a small thing, and it will follow every Bafana result from here, good or bad.
For those of us who follow this game week to week, the connection is simple enough. The national team's fortunes and the domestic league's health are not separate conversations in South Africa. The players Mosimane will pick are the same ones turning out for Sundowns, Pirates, Chiefs, AmaZulu and Stellenbosch on the weekends our fans are predicting, and the calendar disruptions that come with international windows land on those same clubs.
Nothing here changes a scoreline this Sunday. But when the next international break arrives and squads are announced, keep an eye on which Premiership sides lose bodies. That has a habit of turning a fixture you had marked as a home win into something far less obvious.