Sphephelo Sithole

Club football at CD Tondela.

Sourced facts, dated and on the record. Squad membership, and his club when a source names one. Nothing invented; we don’t make players up.

At a glance

age
26
sourced with the squad
position
Midfield
South Africa
club
CD Tondela
football-data.org
club tier
1400
ClubElo strength
our board
#1415
of 1424 rated players
folded so far
2706′
40 appearances

Sourced

squad: South Africa · Midfieldfootball-data.org · 2026-06-29
club: CD Tondelafootball-data.org · 2026-06-29

Sourced context, nothing more. It never touches a call.

Our rating · the working

the board →

1465 ±45

his quality rating: club, age and measured output. The board orders by this plus his World Cup form, less a discount for how much we can measure him.

How the number is builtopenclose

1476 full roster Elo (+11 from national-team results)

the ± is how settled the number is, more minutes, tighter band

Tier 2, lineups + results, how rich the evidence is, not just how much

at or near his peak, no projected upside from age

Where he starts (his team’s strength, we refuse to invent what we haven’t measured) plus two fixed nudges make the quality rating above; the last line is what national-team results have added since, taking it to his full roster Elo.

starts at South Africa's strengththe fair club-over-national anchor, every player's starting point: 1465
age curve at 26 (midfields' curve)the position's measured peak, no discount either way: +0
individual skill termour club xG models haven't seen enough of him for a confident read, so nothing is added, never guessed: +0
quality rating · club, age + measured output: 1465
form: national-team results, 40 appearances2706 minutes, weighted by margin, surprise and his match stats, but shared across the XI: +11
full roster Elo · with results: 1476

A forward-only shadow signal, as of 2026-06-28. The skill term comes from our own xG models over the open archive; the rest is earned, recorded per appearance, auditable, never back-filled. It never moves a live call.

The notebook

The lines a beat writer keeps, except every one of ours is read off the ledger above, auditable to the night. Nothing invented.

standing
#1415 of 1424 rated players on our board.
vs his seed
The folded nights have added +11 to the number he seeded with, he has outplayed his own prior.

What he’d cost · our estimate

€2.6m–€10m ≈ €5.2m

Not a figure from any valuation site; we don’t republish those. Our own model: the level he plays at, what we’ve measured of him, his age and his role. A band, not a point: we can’t see contract length or release clauses, the two biggest real drivers, so we say so.

The workingopenclose

reference feea mid-tier-club, peak-age forward of average measured skill: €8m
club tier 1400the level he plays at, the strongest signal of what a club pays: ×0.72
ageage 26, in the fee-peak window (24–27): ×1.00
midfielder fee factorstrikers set the market's top; midfield runs close; defence and goal at the record books' discounts: ×0.90
individual skillour xG model has no confident read on him, priced on club, age and role only, so the band is wide: ×1.00
our estimate: ≈ €5.2m

fee-model v3 priors (panel-anchored, 2026-06), calibrated against our reported fees. The band is roughly two-in-three likely; contract length and release clauses are data we don’t hold. Context only, it never touches a call.

In our coverage · South Africa’s record

v Canada0–1Called it
v South Korea1–0Missed it
at Czech Republic1–1Missed it
at Mexico2–0Called it

The newsroom’s calls on South Africa. Team-level, never dressed up as a player stat.