His words touched me
MQ: What advice did you get from the senior guys?
IMPORTANT IT’S “I FEEL LIKE WHERE YOUR MOM TO TELL LIKE AND THINGS YOU ARE WHAT MATTER THAT, NO ARE.” AGE YOU
As any successful person,from any walk of life,will tell you,sometimes it takes moving out of one’s comfort zone to g et one’s ambitions kicking into g earand find one’s true north. The ever eloquent Steve Komphela said it best,that g reatness is often achieved in discomfort. Oswin Appollis may be receiving all the plaudits for how talismanic he has been for Polokwane City so far this season,even earning a call-up to Bafana Bafana,but not many are aware of the sacrifices he had to make along the way. The big g est of them all was packing his bag s and leaving not just crime-afflicted Bishop L avis but familiar Cape Town,at just 17 nog al, to forg e a football career for himself in new surrounding s – Gauteng ,to be exact. It may have taken a bit of time,but the attacking midfielderis currently reaping therewards, in the process becoming a shining example to young sters out there that if you can dream it,you can live it. The love and undying support of his mother,too,need not be ig nored,for it seems to have kept his fire burning incessantly. An amazing story, as told by Appollis himself to Soccer L aduma’s MasebeQina in this interview.
Masebe Qina: Oswin, has it finally sunk in that you recently made your Bafana Bafana debut?
Oswin Appollis: At the moment, I’m still thinking about it when I go to sleep and when I wake up. For me, it’s a big step up getting called up to the national team and having made my debut for Bafana at the age of 22. I’m really honoured and proud for the chance I got to be part of the Bafana squad and I hope that in the near future, if I work hard for my team by scoring goals and getting the assists, I will get called up again to the national team. At the end of the day, you need your teammates also to come to the party to lift you as a person. You need the whole 11 players to perform, you can’t just do stuff on your own. Yes, individual brilliance comes now and then, but you need the whole team because there will come a day where maybe you are off-form and you will need your teammates to uplift you. They will also play a big role in me getting a call-up again and I believe in them because in our squad we have very good players to uplift each other, therefore I’m very grateful to have them.
MQ: Did you ever feel let down by your teammates?
OA:
No, I don’t think the team has been inconsistent. The team has been fighting and when we didn’t get the results, we couldn’t blame anyone because we believed we fought to try and get the results. It’s just that it wasn’t our time to win in some of those games. Obviously, we do want to get the results, but I’m happy at the moment with how we’ve been playing. It’s difficult at the moment, but from training as we’re preparing for matches, the team is looking good. I think in the coming weeks as more games will be coming, we’ll get the results judging from what we’ve been doing at training and the teambuilding exercises we’ve had.
MQ: What did it feel like when you came on for Siphephelo Sithole in the last 15 minutes against Rwanda?
OA:
It was a special moment. Playing with the best players in South Africa felt very special for me. These are the people who’ve been in the game for long, I’m talking your (Themba) Zwanes, your (Percy) Taus and Ronwen (Williams), who is one of the best goalkeepers in the country. It was an honour and after the game, I was telling my mom that this is the moment I could be proud of. It showed that I worked very hard to get there and contributed to my club’s progress. It was a very amazing feeling.
MQ: Your mother must be particularly proud.
OA:
She’s very happy, but she feels like I can achieve more if I stay more focused. You know sometimes we get disturbed by a few things, but she believes that I’m on the right track. We always speak and she tells me that there are bigger things waiting for me in football. I told her that at the end of the day, it’s going to come down to my hard work and my discipline is going to get me further in life.
MQ: You say sometimes you get disturbed by a few things…
OA:
I’m talking about off-the-field stuff like going out to eat and failing to tell my mom where I am. Sometimes I’d just tell her that we’ve gone out to eat without mentioning the exact place where I am. Maybe my phone died and she would get worried about my where
abouts, you see. But it’s just small things, man… it isn’t something major that I’m talking about. But I feel like it’s important to tell your mom where you are and things like that, no matter what age you are. I don’t know how other people feel about it, but it’s how I feel about it, to avoid things like her getting worried and stuff.
MQ: What did she say to you after the Rwanda game?
OA:
My mom doesn’t really understand everything about football, but she watches me every time and she told me that I had a few touches. She knows that I could have done more because she’s always watching me every week. I also felt that I could have done more, although I was pleased with my contribution and the touches I had. I’ll continue with my hard work and we’ll see where I’ll end up next. But my mom has been very supportive in my career and she’s been there forever in my life. All these years, she has always told me that she wanted me to be a footballer and she’s always hard on me and pushed me. Sometimes she gets upset about stuff that has happened to me on the field, but she has never let me down. She’s always supported me and has always been the best mom that I can get, who’s always directing me in the right way. I always listen to her and there’s never been a day where I didn’t listen to what she said.
MQ: Tell us about being in camp with some of the best players in the country.
OA:
It was a great feeling. Being there with the best players in the country – seeing Tau and Zwane and having small talks – it was an honour. I know that Bradley (Cross) and Jayden (Adams) also feel very proud for being in that moment. It was a proud moment for them as well.
OA: I remember Siyanda Xulu talking to me, and he told me that I must be calm and just do what I do at my club. He encouraged me to remain calm and assured me that the senior players would guide me. He told me that it was a good platform for me to learn and I feel like I did learn a lot by being there. The most important thing he told me is to remain humble and to continue working hard. I remember his words which touched me so much, that you can have so much talent, but if you take it for granted, the game won’t reward you. I’m grateful for him because he spoke so much sense to me. I took a lot of words from him, and I felt like it was what I needed as someone who is new to the team. He was there to speak to me. He has been in professional football for almost 15 years I think, and I couldn’t have asked for a better person to speak to. It was an honour for me to have someone like him offering to speak to me like that. Like I say, he’s been in the game for years and I’d like to believe that he went through maybe bad and good times in his career. That’s actually one of the things he said to me, that in a football career you’ll always go through good and bad times and the most important thing is working hard and the game will reward you.
MQ: And what did coach Hugo Broos say about your call-up? OA:
I didn’t really speak to the coach, maybe that’s how he is. I was okay with it, and I was just grateful to him for the call-up and I was just there to do my best and work hard. (Before coming on), his words to me were that I should enjoy myself and do my best and that the senior players would help me.
MQ: At 22 and already a senior national team player, some may ask how did you manage to remain focused and out of danger coming from Bishop Lavis, which has a reputation for being a rough area?
OA: To be honest, I think the most important thing to happen for me was to move away from Cape Town. I left Cape Town at an early age, and I’ve always been thinking about them (family) ever since. My mom and granny always encouraged me to remain focused even if I was away from them. I felt that if I had stayed longer in Cape Town and played there, I would have been surrounded by other people like friends and that might have distracted me. Yes, as a human being, you do need people around, but being away from Cape Town helped because had I been there, I would have been surrounded by friends all the time compared to when I was in Gauteng or now in Polokwane, where I would occasionally go visit that one friend to play FIFA (PlayStation). It was a good thing that I relocated, and it was even good that my mom supported that.
MQ: What was it like leaving home as a teenager?
OA: I left home at the age of 17 to join SuperSport United. It was very nice at the club, and I even had the honour of working with a coach from the Netherlands. I learnt a lot there under coaches Godfrey (Mosoetsa) and (Kwanele) Kopo. My time was very nice there.
MQ: You then got promoted to the first team.
OA:
Making my debut was an honour, and I was very young at the time. I’ve always wanted to play more in the PSL, but I can’t blame the coaches or anyone that I didn’t play much because maybe I didn’t put too much effort for me to be able to play much in the first team. So, it was just maybe not my time at SuperSport, but I was grateful for the opportunity they gave me to make my professional debut.
MQ: Lehlohonolo Seema recently parted ways with Rise and Shine… OA: No comment on that.
MQ: But how did you find working with him? OA: It was good and he was someone who motivated the players. He is someone who is always trying to get more out of you as a player. Even if a player felt that he did enough for the team, he always wanted more from that player. That’s what players needed and he was always positive. I learnt a lot from him and I loved his fighting spirit to get the best out of us as players.
MQ: Surprised to see him leave? OA: Ja, very surprised.
MQ: Enter Phuti Mohape. OA:
We are learning a lot from him coaching-wise. I am learning a lot about him as a human being outside of football. It’s very good and I am very happy to be working with him as well.
MQ: Ossie, keep up the good work mfana.
OA:
Thank you, and I’d like to thank my mom, granny and my family. I’d like to thank my girlfriend’s family, and please I would like to see this in the paper with me thanking them because they’ve been supportive in my career. My girlfriend’s name is Nabeelah Davids and she and her family have been with me throughout and have always had my back. I am grateful to have them in my life. And just in general, I am very thankful to people who’ve been looking out for me.