Secret Footballer

This month’s Secret Footballer laments the slow trickle of South African players overseas compared to the flood when he was playing.

“IN MY GENERATION WE TOOK RACIAL ABUSE AND SURVIVED THE WORST.”

It’s been now 29 years since South African football was readmitted to the international game and with every year that passes, the number of players leaving for overseas clubs is getting fewer and fewer. Our Secret Footballer, a former Bafana Bafana player who had a successful career in Europe, expresses his concerns.

The fact that we have fewer players playing their trade overseas is very concerning for me and every South African football fan should be worried about the situation too. There were more South African players playing in big leagues overseas during Apartheid compared to now. What is that?

Back then there were not so many opportunities to go overseas like there are today and yet we always had players moving abroad. From the generation of Kaizer Motaung, Jomo Sono, Pule ‘Ace’ Ntsoelengoe, Abednigo ‘ Valdes’ Ngcobo, Webster Lechaba and later myself … even Pitso Mosimane and many, more players.

We were all scattered around the world having great careers and yet our country was not part of the international football community. These days we are very much part of the global stage, we are recognised as a country and players can go anywhere.

In my generation we took racial abuse and survived the worst. Languages we’ve never heard before – we were exposed to them for the first time in our lives and we had to deal with those things.

I’m not going to complain about food because that is just a small part of the problem to be honest.

The weather was freezing and we had to play in icy-cold conditions, but we had to cope because we wanted to succeed no matter what.

I really don’t know what is going on now, maybe our players are affected by coaching from overseas and changing how they play – I don’t really know. When we played we had our culture and that culture couldn’t be changed by anyone. We went overseas knowing that we have a strong football identity.

Now the influence from outside coaches makes it difficult for our players to have an identity. Overseas clubs want players with unique identity and our players don’t have that.

Some players are taken to countries that are not compatible with their style of play by agents and they come back after just one year. When you go, you need to go to a country where you will hit the ground running and help the club win trophies.

Our players are good in terms of skills but European clubs also want big, strong and tall players and that is why they prefer countries like Cameroon, Ghana and Nigeria. So, the market has slowed down tremendously.

Look at England, they don’t take many African defenders – they opt for attacking players who can dribble and score goals. How many goalkeepers from South Africa are overseas?

There is another big problem which is a comfort zone. Things are a lot more different now compared to the 1970s, ‘80s, ‘90s and even the early 2000s. Players are now getting paid way more compared to then and they are happy to just sit at home and play for the rest of their careers in front of their home crowd.

Players ask themselves: why should I go overseas and go through difficulties, compete with great players and struggle when I’m a star in South Africa? In South African you can play two or three games; you are already big, and those things don’t happen in Europe.

They forget that moving to Europe is not just about money. It’s about improving your game and competing against the best players in the best competitions like UEFA Champions League.

Social life is also difficult in Europe. Overseas you must go to training and go back to your house and rest but our boys always want to be out there doing other things.

During our time, we didn’t have anything to lose and money was not just an issue because we wanted to develop and help the national team. But our national team picks most players from here. We were not getting paid millions in Europe but we improved our football – our boys just think about money and now about the football.

But in future, this situation has to improve because we cannot keep regressing. We need to export more players overseas because that will help our football develop. The younger generation which is playing for Under-17 and Under-20s is looking a little bit hungrier.

I would like to see someone like Dumisani Zuma from Kaizer Chiefs go, if his confident was up he would be good enough to go overseas.

Zuma – I love that boy. He is quick and mesmerizing, but he is just sitting on the bench. He is nippy, he reminds me of Zane Moosa and Jabu Mahlangu. But his confidence is not there.