The Betway Premiership table reads one point between first and second, and the game in hand belongs to the side in second. Mamelodi Sundowns are on 26 points from ten matches. Orlando Pirates are on 25 from nine, with a better goal difference at plus 19 to Sundowns' plus 18.
Wednesday night sorts that out, or at least shifts it. Seven league matches are scheduled and Sundowns are not in any of them. Neither are Milford, who sit fourth. Pirates are, away at Siwelele, 19:30. Win it and Pirates are on 28 points from ten matches and top of the table on their own, with Sundowns watching.
Five of our 21 fans have predicted that match so far. That is the same number who have called most of Wednesday's card, which is generous to the rest of the fixtures and a little odd for the one that could change the top of the table.
Siwelele are the complication nobody should dismiss. They are 14th on six points from nine and the desk notes four defeats in their last five, but the last time our fans wrote them off it cost them. On Friday seven fans predicted Marumo Gallants against Siwelele, three of them went for a 0-1 away win, and Gallants took it 3-2. Only one fan in seven got the result right.
So the question is not whether Pirates are better. It is whether a Pirates side that has just come through a Soweto derby, won 2-1 on Saturday, turns up at a struggling side on a Wednesday night and puts the game away by two or three, or scrapes it 1-0, or drops the two points that would hand Sundowns the cushion back.
The leaderboard says that detail matters. Philani is on 102 points in the Betway Premiership standings, Siyabonga is second on 31, and the gap did not come from picking winners. It came from margins.
If you are filling in Wednesday, the Siwelele match is the one where the scoreline, not the result, is where the points are. A 2-0 and a 3-1 are not the same prediction, and with Sundowns idle, whichever you choose also tells you what you think the table looks like on Thursday morning.