Lebogang Phiri

Lebogang Phiri is an unknown to many local fans, but he is making a name for himself at Brondby.

Unknown in South Africa … a big hit in Denmark

Lebogang Phiri has been winning rave reviews at Danish side Brondby since the turn of the year and has now been rewarded with a first international cap. The 20-year-old’s father played professional football and Phiri can also draw on a solid grounding at Bidvest Wits, where he launched a career that has developed rapidly so far. For a player largely unknown in South Africa, his Bafana Bafana debut against Swaziland in March was a big step forward. KICK OFF: How did your first Bafana Bafana call-up go? LEBOGANG PHIRI: I see it as a big learning experience for me, that is the way I approached it. Coming into the national team set-up with so many more experienced players around me has taught me a lot. I made sure I soaked up every minute of it and it will make me a better player. Hopefully there will be many more, but that is not something I take for granted. I know I have to keep playing at Brondby and keep putting in good performances on a consistent basis. You said that your call-up came as a major surprise … It did because I was not starting as many games as I would have liked in the first half of the season at Brondby, although after the winter break I have been a regular. I thought I would have to spend more time starting games regularly before I could think about the national team. So it was a shock – I read about it in the South African media and couldn’t believe it at first. It shows that as a footballer you have to always be on your toes and be ready for anything, because who knows what’s round the corner? Why do you think you have been playing more in the second half of the season at Brondby? I’m not sure, the coach [Thomas Frank] hasn’t said anything to me about it apart from naming the team, and it is not for me to ask. I just need to take this opportunity to impress and I think I have done that in the time I have played. I have been happy with the performances I have put in and I think the coach is happy too. That is the most important thing. Many South Africans will not have seen you after you skipped the PSL to go straight to Europe. Describe your style of play... I’m a box-to-box midfielder, though my alternative position is as a central defender. I like to be involved in the game as much as possible, on both defence and attack, so I enjoy being able to contribute in both of these areas. The man who brought you to Brondby from Wits, the club’s former sporting director Ole Bjur, described you as a highly intelligent player. What other attributes do you have? I would say I am quite a technical player. A lot of people also don’t see that I have quite a bit of speed in me, mainly because I don’t use it that much! But I would say I am quite an athletic player, I have got a lot of vision on the pitch and I read the game well. I think I am quite composed too; I can handle pressure situations. I can also strike it home from 35-yards if given the chance. Give us a run-down of your football development and how you got to this point. I was playing for an apprentice team called Shooting Stars that was run by Lee Chalmers when I was spotted by Bidvest Wits in 2008. Stars did not play in any league or anything; we played in tournaments and against other academies. It was a team used to develop players and find professional teams for them. So I entered the Wits programme in 2009 on a five-year schedule that was devised to get our group into the first team. Through Wits I went to school at the Andrews Academy, which works on the English Cambridge system of schooling, so I got a really good grounding in education.

I had been to Denmark to train with Brondby a few times because of their connection to Wits, and they signed me on a year-long academy contract in January 2013. That coincided with the team having a number of injuries and within a few months I was playing in the first team. I scored a couple of goals at the end of that season to help the team stay up and soon afterwards I was offered a four-year professional contract. That came just six months into my academy contract, so the team showed a lot of faith in me. I am now contracted to Brondby until June 2017. There has been some talk in Denmark that you could be headed for a bigger league sooner rather than later … I don’t think about that. I am a player that takes it season by season; in fact, game by game. When I was about 16 I made a list of goals I wanted to achieve in the next five years. Four years into that I have exceeded those goals massively. I did not think I would be in Europe so soon, or have played for the national team already. So that shows that things can turn out much better than you expect, but I also know in football that you can take nothing for granted. Things can change very quickly. I am just looking to the next game, staying focused and trying to do my best at all times.