Bafana Bafana legend Doctor Khumalo is backing Patrick Maswanganyi to fill Themba Zwane’s shoes in the national team as the Mamelodi Sundowns playmaker remains out with an injury.
Zwane suffered an Achilles injury during South Africa’s match away to Congo in October and will be out for at least five months. Coach Hugo Broos’ introduced Maswanganyi in his place although the Orlando Pirates midfielder did not cover himself in glory on the day.
That saw him heavily criticised but he answered his doubters somewhat with a well-taken goal in South Africa’s 2-0 win away to Uganda last Friday, having come on as a substitute, and Khumalo says the 26-year-old has what it takes to fill in Zwane’s big shoes as long as he is selected consistently and given time.
“From what I saw when Themba got injured, they gave him [Maswanganyi] a chance,” Khumalo said on the DNA Podcast as quoted by iDiski Times.
Doctor calls for patience with Tito
“Yes, it’s footballing problems… We can’t say ‘he was out of the game, he had a bad game’ because he hasn’t played much for the national team but at Pirates he does.
“He understands the philosophy, the players, they have a social factor there. Now you bring him in in a very crucial match that we’re playing away, and this player hasn’t played for you in the past four or five games, how on earth do you expect this player to be giving us what Themba was giving us, or [Teboho] Mokoena or [Thalente] Mbatha for that matter?”
The Kaizer Chiefs legend defended Maswanganyi over the criticism he faced for his performance in Congo, saying it was too early to judge a player who rarely plays.
“Where I’m seated, I wouldn’t say he had a bad game. It’s so unfortunate that him not getting game-time in Bafana might have added fire. He became something that we never thought he will be,” he added.
Can Maswanganyi replace Zwane?
“When we talk football, let me say you want to run a marathon, you prepare for a marathon but before the marathon, you don’t get any [training] marathons so you can prepare for the bigger one, you don’t get that. Now when you run the big marathon, you haven’t experienced it. [But if you had trained,] you know the distance, you know if you take that corner, this is what’s going to happen.
“It’s like in soccer. For Tito to understand a Mokoena, [Bathusi] Aubaas, how [Oswin] Appollis plays. The only players that he might have an understanding is those he plays with at Pirates.
“But these are the type of situations that we call football problems. So, we don’t want to add fuel into the fire in terms of [saying] ‘Tito is not at his best’. No, he is just ok!
“Can you imagine we don’t have a player like Tito and Themba gets injured, then what? I’m not looking at it in a smaller scale [of one game], I’m looking at it in a bigger scale, the players know that he can dance, they know that he turns up the magic. That’s one point for us.”
