South Africans are good at striking – just not on the soccer field apparently. Look, there’s no doubting the fact that Mzansi’s football is packed with talented players. Local-born players are skilful, fast and can dribble their way out of any situation.
But where do these skills come from?
Is it the way many of us grew up playing soccer in the township? I say, “Yes!”. The way many boys and girls got into football is through “i-one pal” on the dusty streets of the townships. “One pal” is when two opposing teams set up a brick on one side of the street and another brick at the other end. The bricks become a form of “goalposts”, where the teams score by hitting the brick.
Unfortunately, most of the time, this street soccer style means everyone dribbling and not scoring.
Kasi football doesn’t create strikers
South African youngsters love dribbling and showing off their flair - everyone wants to be a Doctor 16 V Khumalo or a Teko Modise. And “one pal” has not helped in developing players that can strike the ball into goal posts. Rather, it has created players who want to walk the ball into the goal posts. We’ve seen many videos of local players, dribbling, dancing and using their knees to play with the ball – but they don’t go forward and attack.
And, at the end of the day (or the game anyway), football is about goals.
I think this “one pal” game format has contributed to South Africans being bad strikers and great ball players and midfielders. Only a few players who had the resources or underwent actual development have become true strikers. South Africa’s best striker, Benni McCarthy, became a world-class striker because of development. Training where there are goalposts plus a goalkeeper helps develop strikers. It helps players build up their confidence to pick their spot, know the distance and shooting from different angles.
Want to bet that a foreign national player will win the Lesley Manyathela Golden Boot?
From 1996/1997 to the current DStv Premiership league title, the majority of been Top Goal Scorers in our league have been foreign internationals.
In 26 seasons, there have been 13 foreign players winning the Lesley Manyathela Golden Boot even before it was called that.
Local-born strikers have won the much-respected award the same amount of times (13) but something seems to give foreign international players more of an edge and I think it’s their development and how they grew up playing the sport.
Let’s break down the seasons, names, country of birth, club, and goals of foreign players who have won the top goal scorer award:
1996-1997 Wilfred Mugeyi, Zimbabwe, Bush Bucks, 22 goals
1999-2000 Dennis Lota, Zambia, Orlando Pirates, 18 goals
2000-1 Gilbert Mushangazhike, Zimbabwe, Manning Rangers, 19 goals
2004-05 Collins Mbesuma, Zambia, Kaizer Chiefs, 25 goals
2005-06 Mame Niang, Senegal, Moroka Swallows, 14 goals
2006-07 Christopher Katongo, Zambia, Jomo Cosmos, 15 goals
2007-08 James Chamanga, Zambia, Moroka Swallows, 14 goals
2010 Knowledge Musona, Zimbabwe, Kaizer Chiefs, 17 goals
2015-16 Collins Mbesuma, Zambia, Mpumalanga Black Aces, 13 goals
2018 Mwape Musonda, Zambia, Black Leopards, 16 goals
2019 Gabadinho Mhango, Malawi, Orlando Pirates, 16 goals
2020 Peter Shalulile, Namibia, Highlands Park, 16 goals
And last season it was, once again, Peter Shalulile, Namibia this time playing for Mamelodi Sundowns and bagging 23 goals.
Even though some local boys have won the Top Goal scorer awards, we also have a poor average on goals. In the 2017-18 season, two SA players shared the award; Rodney Ramagalalela from Polokwane City and Percy Tau from Mamelodi Sundowns. The players both scored a mere 11 goals to win this award – but this was not the lowest. “Die Hond”, better known as Bernard Parker, holds the record for the fewest goals needed to win the Lesley Manyathela Golden Boot Award. While playing for Kaizer Chiefs, he scored 10 goals in the 2013-14 season.
The last South African to have a good tally was Pollen Ndlanya while playing for Kaizer Chiefs in the 1998-99 season. He scored 21 goals. This helped give him 29 international caps with 5 goals scored. This is a clear indication that foreign internationals seem to be banging in more goals at a better rate.
The odds favour the foreign players
With the DStv Premiership already underway, we have seen foreign players leading the goal-scoring tally. Kaizer Chiefs’ new signing, 24 year-old Bonfils Caleb Bimenyimana from Bujumbura, Burundi has been consistent with his goal-scoring. He has said in multiple interviews that he is here for the goals and would like to score every game if not two goals per game. His recent three goals have come from penalties that he scored against Stellies (Stellenbosch FC). Caleb kept taking the goalkeeper the wrong way while slotting the goals in.
Another player leading with goals is Peter “the Namibian Assassin” Shalulile who has also been consistently carrying on since last season. If we know anything about this world-class striker it’s that he’s gunning for the top spot.
So, where are the local boys? Who is the best to follow? Who can we look at and say they can be the winners of the Lesley Manyathela Golden Boot? If I was a betting man I would put my money on foreign internationals, top strikers like Mhango, Bimenyimana or Shalulile to take it and not local boys.
Mzansi players are ball distributors. They create chances but are not good finishers. We lack the killer instinct and I believe it starts with how we grow up in the townships playing i-one pal. The lack of proper soccer fields and resources has kept us from developing and grooming top strikers. This striker issue has been a problem with and for Bafana Bafana, South Africa’s men’s national soccer team. They simply struggle to score. With Benni McCarthy being Manchester United’s striker coach, we hope he can come back and coach other striker coaches. Hopefully this will assist in us seeing more goals in our league and hopefully this can translate to Bafana Bafana being able to qualify for tournaments.
We simply can’t be good at striking for wages and service delivery but not banging in the goals, as real strikers should. We have the talent, we have past examples and we can definitely do it again.