Former Amajita coach Thabo Senong has shared his thoughts on why South Africa fails to produce young players who are good enough to succeed abroad.
Over the past few years, SA has seen the number of players clinching transfers to Europe and other continents, dwindling compared to the good old days.
Compared to other top footballing African countries, SA lags behind when exporting players, especially to the European big leagues.
Bafana Bafana forward Lyle Foster, 23, was the last local star to clinch a move to England when he joined Burnley at the beginning of 2023.
The former Orlando Pirates star moved to England from Belgian side Westerlo after he had been in Europe for at least three years.
Another Bafana star Percy Tau was the last SA player to be signed by an English Premier League club Brighton directly from the Premier Soccer League (PSL) in 2018.
However, due to work permit complications, the former Mamelodi Sundowns man was sent out on loan for three seasons and played for Union SG, Club Brugge and Anderlecht, all in Belgium before returning to England.
Recently, a few local players Bongokuhle Hlongwane, Olwethu Makhanya, Njabulo Blom and Cassius Mailula have all secured transfers to the less competitive but money-spinning Major League Soccer.
Beautiful goal by Lyle Foster, this is doing well. Liberia must be careful, he picking at the right time when Bafana bafana will be playing an important afcon qualifier match. pic.twitter.com/NyMXBQHKGT
— Vincent Tseka 2 (@tseka_vincent) March 11, 2023
Senong, one of the more renowned local youth coaches, is of the view that SA possesses some of the best young players one can come across.
However, he stated that the continued failure to qualify for international youth tournaments such as FIFA World Cups and Africa Cup of Nations by SA junior national teams has denied those players exposure.
“It’s a combination of factors because you can’t only look at the quality of the players we already have,” said Senong during an interview on Game On with Thabiso Mosia on Radio 2000.
“If you look at the past 20 years in our country, the programs that have been put in place to nurture talent have done some excellent work.
“If you look at the academy programs that we have country-wide and the leagues that are helping to keep the academies and development centres active because we move around different provinces, we’ve got a very organised Gauteng Development League that creates an opportunity for all the academies to play against each other.
“The same happens in the Western Cape where you find organised academies playing against each other because we all know that for us to produce the best players, it means the young talent has to play against the other available young talent,” said Senong.
Percy Tau just scored this!!
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“When the best play against the best, it stimulates progression in the talent and it stimulates maturity so that a player at 16, 17, 18, 19 could be able to graduate into men’s senior football and could be able to play consistently.
“But also, there’s the business side of it, there are player managers that also have a role to play as a stakeholder of the game because when we speak of the production of players, we have to look at our presents at junior national teams,” he said.
“If you remember, the first team that went to the U20 World Cup was the Amajita team coached by Mr (Shakes) Mashaba in 1997.
“If you recall that team had the likes of Benni McCarthy upfront, Junaid Hartley at defensive midfielder, Stanton Fredericks, the likes of Patrick Mbuthu, Abram Nteo and Aaron Mokoena.
“That team was kept together until the year 2000 when they participated in the Sydney Olympic Games.
“Having youth teams qualifying for junior continental and FIFA tournaments will contribute to the exposure that young talent will get.
“International scouts will see those talents playing against the other best talents around.
“The more we are absent from those tournaments, it will affect the number of players that we export.
“And of course, it goes back to the agent again to say they have a role to play in terms of really working aggressively, penetrating the overseas market and to push, expose, and advertise our players as well.”
Senong also pointed out that the growth of PSL as a brand means players can earn decent salaries while having the comfort of being closer to home.
That also takes away the desire to go abroad to make more money.
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Bongokuhle Hlongwane was on the scoresheet for Minnesota United, as they lost 5-3 to FC Dallas, in the #MLS.pic.twitter.com/c8wmOouQX2
