Bafana Bafana and Kaizer Chiefs legend Doctor Khumalo believes Patrick Maswanganyi has all the ingredients to replace Themba Zwane in the national team.
The debate whether Tito can fill in for the injured Zwane, or even when ‘Mshishi’ retires, has been going on for months.
The Orlando Pirates attacking midfielder netted his first goal at Bafana level in the 2-0 win over Uganda on Friday, but haven’t had many chances to shine yet.
There had been criticism of his performance after coming on in the 1-1 draw in Congo Brazzaville, when he came off the bench to replace Zwane, who picked up a serious Achilles injury in that game, but Khumalo insisted Maswanganyi needs to be given more time to showcase his skills at international level.
“From what I saw when Themba got injured, they gave him a chance,” he said on the DNA Podcast.
“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.
“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…
“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 problem. 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 turn up the magic. That’s one point for us.
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“They know if they give him the ball and give him the support he needs, he can make things happen.”
