If the phone call had come from anyone else, I would have dismissed the story with the contempt I thought it deserved, but, like I said, this is thee Thomas Kwenaite we are talking about here. He's never given anyone any reason to doubt him. To further enhance the story, he took it a step further by giving reasons why Tau was likely to fall down the pecking order at Brighton Hove Albion, giving reason to this pending move. Since then, the story has been told and proved to be true. When the news broke on our website, it did so without a byline and only a few people from our office knew where it had come from. True to his nature, Bra TK, as Kwenaite is affectionately known, didn't want to be the 'star of the show' and opted to tell the story rather than being the story, if you catch my drift.
That was just to give you the background to the story because Tau is our poster boy, he's our best player. He was exported almost four seasons ago, but the amount of game-time he's been getting hasn't done justice to the quality we believe he has. In Belgium, on loan, he was a regular feature and took the league by relative storm. We thought he had laid a solid foundation for a blossoming career in the Barclays Premier League when it was time to return to his mother club, Albion. If we are to be honest with ourselves, we will admit that Tau hasn't lived up to expectations, although you can argue his case. It is a serious concern that our best player has been struggling for game-time at a relegation candidate team like The Seagulls, with all due respect to them. As far as we are concerned, Albion should be built around Tau, but that's not happening. His former Mamelodi Sundowns coach, Jingles, couldn't have put it more succinctly when he said we haven't seen Tau play football since his days in Belgium, a league that South African teams can compete in.
This isn't just about Muzi but South African football at large and I feel we need to be honest with ourselves. Maybe, just maybe, we are not who we think we are. Maybe we are not where we think we are in terms of our football at international level. Do you know that we were once ranked among the top 16 countries in the world? Not just the African continent, where we were in the top five, and that was a proud moment for all of us. Ask anyone now where is our country on the FIFA rankings and see how many people even care to know? Very few and that's simply because not many really care about anyone ranked below 50. Who and what we think we are don't agree with our ranking. Maybe, once again, we need to be honest with ourselves and admit that we are not where we think we are and we are certainly not who we think we are in the bigger scheme of things. Can you believe that Steven Pienaar, who retired three years ago, is the last South African player to feature regularly in a top league? We have exported a huge number of players over the years, but they have only been good enough for the Scandinavian countries. If that doesn't say anything about the quality and standard of our players, I don't know what does. This is one of those uncomfortable issues we need to address. Gone are the days when we had David Nyathi, Siyabonga Nomvethe and Mark Fish in Italy, Shoes Moshoeu and Helman Mkhalele in Turkey, Lucas Radebe, Andre Arendse, the late Philemon Masinga, Pienaar, Quinton Fortune and Benni McCarthy in the EPL, Matthew Booth and Macbeth Sibaya in Russia, Sibusiso Zuma and Delron Buckley in Germany and Tsepo Masilela in Spain, where he rubbed shoulders with the likes of Cristiano Ronaldo. There are other examples of players who joined teams in big leagues and played regularly, but that has dwindled over the years.
Our best has only been good enough for obscure leagues and you wonder why our national team hasn't had any significant impact at the international stage. Bafana Bafana will not be forming part of the teams participating at the next Afcon in Cameroon. We have failed to qualify and this is the sad reality we have to face and admit to the fact that this is what we've become. South Africa, we are not who or what we think we are. Look at the overall performance at the recent Olympics and the number of medals we came back with. That's a clear indication of who and what we are. You also look at the impact other African players have in big leagues while ours continue to flock to unknown leagues. When it comes to infrastructure, we are up there amongst the best, head and shoulders above the rest of the continent, but what do we have to show for it? Maybe it is time for us to have an honest conversation with ourselves, sort of an introspection, and admit that we are not who we think we are. The question is simply how do we get to be who we think we are? How do we get to where we think we should be? These are some of the questions we need to find answers to so that we take our football and sport to the next level. We have everything, but we have just become perpetual underachievers!
On a separate note, let's all make sure to vaccinate so that we can protect ourselves and loved ones from this COVID-19 pandemic. It is in our hands and we have a responsibility to dispel all these conspiracy theories around vaccination and encourage one another to do the right thing. Stay safe.
