Avril Phali

The former Jomo Cosmos and Orlando Pirates goalkeeper spills the beans on his time in the PSL and reveals what he is up to now.

Having started out as a striker, Avril Phali eventually made it in professional football as a goalkeeper and spent over a decade at Jomo Cosmos and Orlando Pirates. The retired gloveman spoke to KICK OFF’s Lovemore Moyo about disappearing with R100, earning R3,800 at Jomo Cosmos and being frozen out at The Buccaneers.

When Jomo Sono spotted a left-footed goalkeeper who walked with a limp at the turn of the new millennium, little did he know that he had found a reliable pair of hands that would guard the posts at Jomo Cosmos for over a decade.

Avril ‘ Tshawe’ Phali had only been a gloveman for three years when he arrived at Cosmos from third tier club Vaal Ambassadors aged 21.

He had played football as a striker through all his school years, inspired by local hero Robinson Seakamela, who was a habitual scorer for Vaal Professionals in the years when they played topflight football in the 90s.

“As a kid I watched Vaal Professionals a lot and we all wanted to be like Seakamela, so that is why I was a striker,” says Phali. “I only became a keeper after being convinced by these guys who used to work at a shop close to home here in Sebokeng, who played as goalkeepers.

“I wasn’t so keen on keeping goals but then it so happened that when I became a keeper, everything just fell in place. I wouldn’t have made it as a professional if I had remained a striker because in those days there were too many strikers,” he reveals.

The trademark wild laughter and sharp sense of humour that have always defined Phali remains to this day as he discloses just how he came to be at Cosmos.

“Bra J spotted me at the Second Division play-offs but didn’t take me right away, so I went to train with First Division club Spartak where I met my favourite keeper, Eshele Botende as he rounded off his career.

“I was meant to sign for Spartak but then Bra J hijacked me when he saw me again and I left with the R100 that Spartak had given me for transport so that I would bring my clearance and identity document,” says Phali.

‘I was excited to be earning R3,800’

After arriving at Cosmos, he found Abram Khwenenyane, Silver Shabalala and Simon Gopane, but fortune swung in his favour as Khwenenyane and Gopane both left prior to the start of the season.

It meant he now only had Shabalala to compete with, and who he quickly

dislodged, making 27 appearances in his first season in 2000/01.

“I came in as a back-up who was just excited to be earning R3,800 per month, which was a lot considering that I was using public transport from Vaal to Jozi CBD, from where there was a taxi that took us from the KFC on Small Street to training in Turffontein.

“I was this dizzy mbuzi [goat] from Vaal with nothing but this desire to play football with all these big-name players.

“The day I made my debut Bra J wasn’t even with us in Durban, but I didn’t know. He told me over the phone that I would start and then said he will watch the game from the stands, yet he wasn’t even at the stadium.

“With the flight to Durban ahead of that game, he had told me not to order food worth more than R30 and if the lady serving comes, I must be loud in telling her that I want food for only R30.

“I WOULDN’T HAVE MADE IT AS A PROFESSIONAL IF I HAD REMAINED A STRIKER.”

“So, just as the lady came with the food, I confidently told her with a loud voice that I only want food for R30. Everyone on that commercial flight burst out in laughter and I only realised afterwards that the food was for free. That was my first time in an aeroplane!” he remembers with a smile after being duped by the playful Sono..

From negotiating his way past his first season in the PSL, during which Ezenkosi reached the Rothmans Cup semi-finals and finished fourth in the league, he was then disturbed by an injury in his second year which led to him being limited to just 11 appearances.

But he was back the season next as Cosmos won the 2002 Coca-Cola Cup, but then lost in the ABSA Cup semi-finals, played in the African Cup Winners’ Cup and finished eighth in the league.

Over the next four years he remained first choice as Ezenkosi bagged the SAA Supa8 and then added the Coca-Cola Cup again.

Bafana selection & Pirates switch

Phali was now amongst the top keepers in the country and his selection to the Bafana Bafana squad that went to the 2006

Africa Cup of Nations finals was no surprise, though the disappointment was that for all the numerous call-ups he received, he never won a single cap.

Then, having won trophies with Cosmos, he made the switch to Orlando Pirates in 2006 and in his one season stay as a Buccaneer, he played 15 games, including the CAF Champions League semi-finals.

“As a player you are always looking to grow and the only way to do so is to leave the comforts of home and chase new challenges. I found Pirates buzzing and that is where I found the best player that I have ever played with, Gift Leremi.

“That boy was amazing and could move the ball at pace with both feet. He enjoyed playing in the reserve league more than he did playing in the first team.

“That’s because he would play in the reserve league on the Monday and then disappear for the rest of the week only to then pitch up again the next Monday. This one day at training Gift left the late Bibey Mutombo confused after dribbling everyone in the ‘A team’ during training and scored twice.

“I remember Mutombo asking, ‘but guys, how can you be dribbled by someone who is not always at training like you?’. Gift was special and I am yet to see anyone who plays like him,” he says.

From playing regularly under Micho Sredojevic through the first six months, Phali’s stay at Pirates turned sour when Mutombo took over at the beginning of 2007. The coach preferred his fellow countryman Francis Chansa.

“Mutombo was so unfair in that when it was Chansa making saves, he would applaud him and not say anything when it was me. It got to an extent that as goalkeepers we were now taking instructions from Chansa because he was being spoken to in French by the coach.

“Of all the keepers it was only Chansa who understood him and I knew already that I won’t last in this team.

“I never played under Mutombo because he preferred Chansa, who he favoured even though he conceded a lot of goals. In the end I just decided to leave Pirates because I wasn’t enjoying my football anymore and the treatment that I was getting from Mutombo was that of a person who felt he will never need us.

“The chairman tried to convince me to stay but I had already made up my mind,” says Phali, who is now 42.

‘I never got a signing on fee at Cosmos’

Despite the sad ending, Pirates is a chapter that brought him joy.

“Going to Pirates helped in opening me up to the outside world. I wouldn’t have had what I have now if I hadn’t gone to Pirates, where I was exposed to other opportunities.

“I never got a signing-on fee at Cosmos and the first fee I got was when I went to Pirates. I used that money to build the house here at home because that is always the most important step to take before you do anything.

“If I had stayed at Cosmos, and only getting a salary, what would I have done? I wouldn’t have been able to fix this house to be what it is now. I was just lucky that when I returned to Cosmos, I was taken on the same contract that I had at Pirates,” he notes.

Sadly, Cosmos were relegated in his first season back with them in 2007/08 in a dismal campaign in which they scored just 13 goals and finished rock bottom.

It was to mark the start of what Ezenkosi have now become – a team that has fallen so bad that it shuttles between the PSL and NFD with promotion an achievement by their lowered standards.

“Our downfall was that we were a team that was always losing its best players so eventually it took its toll because we were not getting replacements that would make the same impact. The problem was that whenever we got promoted, we would do so with players who wouldn’t cope in the tactically advanced PSL. With us, we had players who believed more in physique than saving energy,” he says.

Having put in close to 250 games on the clock in the dozen years that he spent as a player at Cosmos, Phali was eventually forced by injury to call it quits in 2013, having been captain and endured spells when he was the only goalkeeper travelling with the team.

“In our last relegation before I retired, I played with an injury. Before I decided to retire, [Bid Vest] Wits showed interest and I referred them to Bra J, even though I didn’t have a contract with the club.

“I was that loyal to Bra J that I wanted Wits to still talk to him even though I didn’t have a contract with Cosmos anymore. It was my sign of appreciation and respect to ask him [Sono] to talk to Wits, but I don’t know what happened which led to the deal not happening.

“Bra J just told me it didn’t work out and after that I decided to retire. Wits wanted me injured because they said they have the best doctors around,” explains Phali.

‘I left Cosmos for reasons best kept secret’

He then took up the goalkeeper coaching job, staying for five years before he left in 2019 and has now since started the Avril Phali Sedibeng Sports Academy.

Without any guaranteed income every month, Phali is still able to fend for his family and take care of his three kids, Thabiso (10), Musa (6) and Hloni (5).

From being the sportswear salesman that he has always been since his playing days, he also shadows the Shadrack Monareng-owned Elebone Construction Company and is close to Johnny ‘Mkhonto’ Radebe, who runs the Mkhonto Cup in the Sedibeng Masters Football Association. What has helped is that Phali has always stayed in Sebokeng, even through the more than 10 years that he played professional football.

“I left Cosmos for reasons best kept a secret because of the respect that I have for Bra J. With the academy that I have registered, we will start next year from the Under-6. What is sad is that there is no longer schools sport, and these kids are hooked on drugs, so it is for us as former players to try and make a difference regardless of how little it may be.

“Back in the day, the Vaal used to feed the PSL with a lot of players but the numbers have now dropped, which is not good for the area.

“From the time when I started playing, I was always a salesman who sold sportswear, ranging from sneakers and boots to gloves. I still do that up to now because I know where to source all this equipment and then where to supply.

“Even Bra J knows that I was always a hustler. I’m not struggling because I have never lived a flamboyant life. I don’t have a full-time job, but my wife and kids know that they never go to bed hungry.

“I never changed my lifestyle when I was playing so there is nothing different now. I never left Sebokeng to go and stay in another area when I played in the PSL, so it is still the same for me. I’m still Chawe. Nothing has changed.

“If you change your life, then it means you must deal with the pressure of trying to maintain it forever when you no longer have the means to do so. My mom taught me that I should stay humble and never forget where I come from and I think I have done that,” he says, before adding that voicing his feelings about football.

“I have no grudges with football, but I think you shouldn’t be wired to think loyalty pays. If there is an opportunity to leave and make better money elsewhere, then go for it because this a football career doesn’t last forever.

“There is no guarantee that playing for one club will mean you get a job after you are done playing. Once your playing contract is up then it is over, and you are owed nothing. Life goes on and they will start looking for other younger players.

“Just because I played for Cosmos it doesn’t meant they owe me a job now,” he concludes.

“OUR DOWNFALL WAS THAT WE WERE A TEAM THAT WAS ALWAYS LOSING ITS BEST PLAYERS SO EVENTUALLY IT TOOK ITS TOLL.”