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Thapelo Maseko

South Africa · the desk

Midfield, South Africa

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

    22

    sourced with the squad

  • position

    Midfield

    South Africa

  • our board

    #1370

    of 1424 rated players

  • folded so far

    504′

    13 appearances

On the pitch

Goals for South Africa, on the record and counted.

  • goals

    1

  • assists

    0

goals and assists from our captured match events · caps and minutes from the appearance record

Sourced

squad
South Africa · Midfieldfootball-data.org · 2026-06-29

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

Our rating · the working

the board →

1520 ±55

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

1525 full roster Elo (+5 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

potential ~1533 ±56 a projection, not a measurement: room left on the midfield age curve

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
1540
age curve at 22 (midfields' curve)measured from the open archive by our own study (defenders: the published literature's shape), never fitted to our calls
-20
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
1520
form: national-team results, 13 appearances504 minutes, weighted by margin, surprise and his match stats, but shared across the XI
+5
full roster Elo · with results
1525

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

    #1370 of 1424 rated players on our board.

What he’d cost · our estimate

We don’t price him yet. Our fee model leans on the level he plays at, and no trusted source has given us his club’s strength. We’d rather show nothing than a number we don’t trust.

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.

Squad · sourced