Euro dream deferred for Vilakazi
Wits playmaker admits disappointment over failed overseas transfer affected his PSL form
THERE are times in a footballer’s life when the big move is either going to happen — or just might not. Sibusiso Vilakazi appears to be at such a crossroads.
At 25, after an average campaign for Bidvest Wits, but an excellent breakthrough season for Bafana Bafana, Vilakazi is pondering his future and hoping the move to Europe comes now.
The 2013-14 PSL Player and Players’s Player of the Year admits when a move to Danish side Brondby fell through at the beginning of last season it affected his form for Wits.
“I would have liked an opportunity overseas after that good season,” the technically gifted, and at times devastating, playmaker, said.
“That was at the back of my mind when the season started — having worked so hard, I was disappointed to be back playing in the PSL.”
If that disappointment, and the difficulty of trying to match his best campaign, were not enough, Vilakazi’s most injuryplagued season was the killer blow. It’s down to the playmaker’s class that he was still one of Wits’ best players. But four goals — three in a hat-trick against Ajax Cape Town — did not quite match the clinical 10 of the previous season.
Perhaps then, it should not be surprising that when Vilakazi did get a chance to step up a level, given an extended run by Bafana coach Shakes Mashaba, he gave everything to prove himself.
From the brace scored in Mashaba’s first game, coming off the bench to break a stalemate against Sudan in Khartoum, to the Africa Cup of Nations finals in January, Vilakazi took to international football like a veteran. “I was on a bigger stage in the Afcon, the attention was there for me. I started to put in more effort even in the preparation games,” he said.
His Bafana form came within a year of Wits coach Gavin Hunt surprisingly proclaiming he did not think the player was international class yet. To an outsider it might seem a complicated relationship. The ultra-perfectionist Hunt rarely praises his star player, always saying he could have done more. It did push Vilakazi to being PSL player of the season.
“We have always had a good understanding, him and I,” the playmaker insists.
“I’ve always given 110%. He’s always given me his support. He gives me a free role. That makes me go the extra mile to play well for him.”
Wits CEO Jose Ferreira feels it might not be Vilakazi’s form or class that work for or against him moving abroad, so much as the current economic climate.
“We’ve had a few tentative enquiries — nothing concrete,” Ferreira said. “What’s also happened is, other than the big clubs, there’s not that much money going round in Europe. And SA players earn a package nowadays which some European clubs can only match.”
It would seem a travesty if a player who seems to have all the technical attributes to succeed in Europe could not get a chance there.
“It’s always been my dream to go abroad and then be able to add something to the national team too. We need more players playing abroad consistently,” Vilakazi said.
“If it could happen now I would be the happiest player in the world. If it doesn’t, I have to move on.”