‘Patience pays in life’

At times he still wonders what could have happened had he been patient enough to hold on at Pirates.

“I was young and still at school, I didn’t have patience. But I have now come to learn that patience pays in life. You never know, maybe I could have eventually broken into the first team at Pirates had I persevered long enough,” he notes.

After completing his Matric and then moving to Dynamos, he found the team cruising on their way to winning promotion into the PSL in 2002. Though he had been registered, he never featured in the year they went up and was happy to rather learn.

Even into the first season that Ri Khomeni Ri Nga Peli played in the topflight in 2002/03, Maluleke had to continue learning from the bench and the stands, with his chance coming at the end of that campaign.

Moving from Soweto to Giyani had grown him into a tenacious man who now had to be in the same dressing room as Frank Makua, Timothy Nkosi, Joel Seroba, Josam Ndou, Gerald Raphahlela, Alex Bapela, Adam Ndlovu, Andries Sebola and Lefa Gqosha.