Foxes are investing in Leshabela
SA-born left-winger may get an opportunity to shine on a different stage at the Tokyo Olympics.
Who are the two South Africans to have played in the English Premier League this season? Bafana Bafana star Percy Tau is the one that most would recall, making his Brighton and Hove Albion debut this year amid much fanfare against Manchester City.
The other, perhaps lesser known debutant, is Khanya Leshabela, a 21-yearold, Soshanguve-born winger, who came on, amid far less fanfare, for the last nine minutes of Leicester City’s 5-0 thumping of Sheffield United on 14 March.
“We’ve given a lot of young players their taste of first-team football and he’s a young player who’s worked very hard, he was unfortunate not to go on loan,” Leicester’s head coach Brendan Rodgers told LCFC TV after the match.
“We had to keep him to have him around the first-team squad and he got his reward for that. There’s still a long way to go for him but he’s got quality and he came into the game and showed nice confidence.”
A loan spell at a Championship side or abroad is often a start for youngsters at top EPL sides, where they can impress and show their skills before hopefully making the progression into a more regular spot at their parent club.
For Leshabela, however, there is set to be a different opportunity to shine during the off-season, as he could well be a part of the South Africa team that takes part in the re-scheduled Olympic Men’s Football Tournament in Tokyo.
Leshabela was named this week in coach David Notoane’s preliminary 40man squad for the tournament, though competition for places is fierce, with only 18 men eventually making the trip to Japan.
The young left-winger, who can also play as a left-back, was a part of Notoane’s squad for the preliminary qualifying win over Zimbabwe in August 2019, that got the side to the Caf Under-23 Africa Cup of Nations.
He was not, however, part of the side a few months later that finished third in Egypt, to qualify for the Olympics, with the dates falling partly outside of the international window, making it difficult to get players.
The Olympic football tournament also comes at a tricky time for club football, with the dates, from 21 July to 7 August, falling right towards the end of many side’s pre-season preparations. Notoane, however, does not envisage having any problems getting the players he wants.
“It is a very interesting phenomenon, when qualification started, it was a problem, there was quietness, no one is phoning. When we qualify, all the calls are coming, names are being thrown in,” said Notoane.
“That suggests to me clubs will want their players in a tournament of this magnitude because it helps the clubs see how far these players have developed.”
Leicester City may be one of those clubs, happy to give Leshabela the chance to show what he can do in Japan, with a stellar display only a plus for the EPL side, whether they want to keep him again next season, or send him out on loan.
Either way, progress to regular first team football would seem like the logical next step for Leshabela, who left South Africa with his parents at the age of just two, to move to Northampton.
As a junior, he played for Northamptonshire academy sides Parklands Tigers and Gregory Celtic, before being snapped up by Leicester City’s academy as a teenager in 2013.
Working his way through Leicester’s academy structures, Leshabela was nominated for Player-of-the-Season at the club’s Under-18 side in the 2017/18 campaign, before securing a three-anda-half year professional contract in January 2019.
At international level, Leshabela was part of the Amajita squad that played in the 2019 Under-20 Africa Cup of Nations, and after qualifying from there, the 2019 Under-20 Fifa World Cup.
The youngster, however, only played one game under Thabo Senong at the World Cup, in the final group game, a 1-1 draw with Portugal.
Leshabela is also eligible to play for England, having never played a competitive match for Bafana Bafana, but South Africa looks a more likely path for the 21-year-old, and the Olympics could well serve as another stepping stone in a budding career.