Surprise Ralani has explained how watching his talented son, Emile Witbooi, inspired him to not hang up his boots and keep going.
Ralani joined Cape Town Spurs last month, after being a free agent since leaving Mamelodi Sundowns at the end of last season.
Despite being 36, the evergreen Ralani is still in great physical condition, and while others may have thought the former Cape Town City man would consider retiring, he told Rob Delport in the latest edition of iDiski Times that the thought hadn’t crossed his mind.
In fact, he said that seeing his son, who is a junior international and rising star at the School of Excellence, playing, motivated him even more to keep pushing and find a team.
“There is and that has also pushed me, that has also pushed me into saying not to give up,” Ralani told iDiski Times.
“Because I even got calls or messages asking, ‘Are you gonna retire?’ and stuff like and I said, ‘No. It has not crossed my mind yet, of retiring.
“But I’m gonna wait for the right moment to join a team where I feel like I’m going to be appreciated again’.
“Because you know, of what happened just recently with me, I just felt like I lost a little bit of being in touch with football.
“And at some point, you wouldn’t believe me, watching my son on TV, or while I was in Joburg, going to his games, watching him live, watching him play, he actually inspired me (laughs).
“He actually inspired me to stay strong and not give up. Seeing how good he plays made me happy and made me fall in love with the game again and say, ‘I gotta do this again, because there’s someone that’s still looking up to me as a role model.’”
“He might not say it, you understand, he might not say it and he might have his own role models in South African football or in Europe, or whatever, but I am his first reference, because I was the first one that gave him the ball, and said, ‘Come, let’s play’.
“I was the first one that gave him soccer shoes. I was the one that made him fall in love with the game, carrying him to football matches locally and saying, ‘Come and watch me play’, and stuff like that.
“That’s how he fell in love with the game. And his family from his mother’s side also, is very big in football. So there is a love of football from both sides, me and the mother. So ja, at some point, seeing him play made me believe and fall in love with the game all over again, because of the things that he is doing on the field.
“And then I got in touch with football again. And I thought to myself, ‘No ways. I can’t give up this easily, because there’s a slim chance of me and my son playing together – against each other actually’.”
