Patosi’s errant ways end
DISCARDED Bafana Bafana midfielder Ayanda Patosi has gone missing from his Belgian club again and now looks to have exhausted the patience of Lokeren.
The Cape Town-born Patosi is coming to the end of his contract but looks to have played his final game for the club.
“His story is closed‚” said the club’s technical director Willy Reynders after Patosi skipped training this week and a friendly match with the Dutch club Twente Enschede.
“Unless he has a convincing reason‚ we are going to cancel his contract.”
Patosi has a long history of truancy and has often been in trouble with clubs for coming back late from international duty or skipping training.
“It seems such a waste because if he had the personal discipline he would be an enormous talent‚” the Belgian newspaper Het Nieuwsblad commented yesterday.
Earlier this month Patosi ended a fourmonth spell without a start at Lokeren when he returned to the lineup in the same week in which he was dropped from the Bafana Bafana squad for the friendlies against Guinea-Bissau and Angola.
Patosi moved to Belgium in 2011 after being chosen as the best player at the Bayhill tournament where he played for Cape Town’s African Soccer Developments Academy.
The 24-year-old started 118 games for Lokeren and scored 24 times in seven seasons. He was an unused substitute when Lokeren won the Belgian Cup in 2012 and 2014 and he also played in the Uefa Europa League. — TMG Digital