South African sprinter Akani Simbine made an intriguing revelation about his childhood dream of playing professional football and showed skepticism regarding his favourite clubs.
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The story
Having garnered plenty of success on the track, including an Olympic Silver medal in 4x100 metres at this year's Paris Olympic Games, Akani Simbine once had aspirations of becoming a footballer.
The 31-year-old sprinter revealed in an interview with Fiso Mazibuko on the SuperSport Unplugged podcast, that he was forced to focus on one sport, choosing athletics over football.
The fastest man in Mzansi shared in his conversation with Mazibuko that football, not athletics, was his childhood dream, and that he came to a crossroads during his matric year.
"Athletics was not a plan. This was not a dream for me. I wanted to be a soccer player. I just wanted to play soccer, I was doing well at soccer and you know, that was my dream," noted Simbine, who used his sheering pace to his advantage as a youngster on the pitch.
"I was always the kid where the team used to plan around me. They were like, 'Okay, we're going to kick the ball over and then you just run and go score," recalled the seasoned 100m sprinter.
"I got to matric and at that point, they [his alma mater] got me a [running] coach and I was playing club soccer, school soccer and athletics. You know matric with South African moms, you gotta cut it down and just gotta do books, I was like, no man, I have to do something.
"[My mom] said just choose one. Off just a whim, I let go of my soccer dream to [focus on] athletics," added Simbine.
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Although Simbine is a proud Chelsea FC and Kaizer Chiefs supporter, both teams have let him down considerably last season and is wary about getting too excited over the progress of both clubs this season.
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