Shorty wears her heart on her sleeve

Growing up in Alexandra, a township in the north of Johannesburg, Simphiwe Dluldlu was always exposed to football. For many years, the township has pro

duced a host of stars in South African football which have done tremendously well in their football careers. Dludlu is one of many talented players from Gomora – as Alexandra is known – to have had a successful career as a footballer and she is now doing quite well in coaching. She is the coach of Bantwana.

The 30-year-old started her career playing for Phomolong Ladies, before having stints with the University of Pretoria and Mamelodi Sundowns ladies teams. She has also represented Banyana

Banyana at the Africa Women Cup of Nations. Unfortunately, she never got a chance to play at the World Cup, with the senior national women’s failure to qualify for the competition to this day. However, since hanging up her boots

in 2014, Dluldu has pushed through football education and began her coaching

career with the University of Pretoria team playing in the University Sports South Africa (USSA) league.

The Bantwana coach has grown immensely in her coaching career and became the second coach to qualify the team for the Under-17 Fifa World Cup in Uruguay having last competed at the global competition back in 2010 in Trin

idad and Tobago.

“Personally the World Cup for me is a milestone, it’s big. We are not talking continental, but we are talking about a global competition. It is not only beneficial for the players, but also for the coaches to impart their knowledge and to be able to get the best out of the players and their teams,” she continued.

“I think all the hard work, sleepless nights, the sacrifices of being away from my family while chasing success to make sure I give the best of me, is paying off. For us as a nation it has (qualifying for the World Cup) given me hope for every young player to have a reason why they play football. For those young girls in the team it is a huge achievement and that puts a smile on my face.

“It also helped me not to be naïve to say we qualified for the World Cup and we are just going out there to do our thing and shock everyone. The stage is bigger, the stakes are high, which means more quality will be demanded from each and every one of us from the goalkeeper to that striker who is number two of three on the bench.”

Going to the World Cup, Dludlu wants her charges to be thoroughly prepared for competing against top nations. The team recently participated in the Brics tournament held in Johannesburg and believes competing at two or more tournaments before heading off to Uruguay in November will help her players.

“We need to keep our focus and concentrate on the prize, which is to go to the World Cup and play as a team and do our level best,” she added.

“Preparing for the tournament should be specific, how are we going to play and carry ourselves as a team. Because I need to be honest with myself and the players to say, this is the level we are at, we want to achieve and go to a higher level.

“We just came back from the Brics tournament which tested us and measured where we are as a team. There is a gap, but it’s not really huge but needs to be filled. We came third out of five teams and the level of the competition was high.”

Dludlu’s work hasn’t gone unnoticed as she is nominated for Coach-of-the-Year at this year’s Gsport4girls awards.