By Velile Mnyandu
Fresh from making history Bafana Bafana colours, becoming the first debutant in the senior men’s national football team colours to score a hat-trick, top striker Victor Letsoalo has denounced the violent looting that has engulfed South Africa in the past few days.
Letsoalo was speaking after the 4-0 hammering of neighbours Lesotho in the COSAFA Cup tournament, currently underway in Gqeberha.
Letsoalo, a Bloemfontein Celtic striker who only joined the Bafana camp as a replacement this past weekend, became only the second Bafana striker to score a hat-trick after Benni McCarthy’s golden four goal haul at the 1998 African Cup of Nations (AFCON) game against Namibia.
He has used this moment, to urge South Africans to desist from continuing with the looting and violence, which has left more than 70 people dead and more than 1200 arrested in Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal.
“I feel great for being given an opportunity to represent my country, even though a lot is happening in the country now and it’s not good, but we just hope whatever we did today, everybody will focus on our result and they will stop doing what they doing out there. And I’m very happy to have score a hat-trick on my debut.”
“As a team and as South Africans, we condemn violence, whatever is happening now, we are not happy but at least through football we will being the nation together. Even the coach said it before the game, that whatever we gonna do today, it will even go to whatever is happening in the country and bring some positivity during this gloom moment in the country,” said Letsoalo on this sad situation around the country.
Letsoalo is expected to play a prominent role again this afternoon when Bafana Bafana wrap up their Group A programme against Zambia at the Nelson Mandela Bay stadium at 15:00. The team has already secured a semi-final berth and is also guaranteed a top spot finish.
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