MacBeth enjoying spell at Swallows

It's hard to imagine MacBeth Sibaya as an accountant, pin-striped suit, ledger buried under his arm, making his way down a boulevard in one of South Africa's financial districts.

Football fans have an image burned in their minds of Sibaya roughing it up in pitched midfield battles with Steven Gerrard, Xabi Alonso and Maniche, earning 58 caps for Bafana Bafana. So picturing him as an office pen-pusher might conceivably be a stretch.

But that's what Sibaya might have become had his football talent not come to fruition.

"I was good at accounting and maths and was going to follow that route," Sibaya says of his childhood in Hammarsdale, outside Durban.

His famous dreadlocks might have gone, but don't expect a shaven-headed Sibaya to look any less fearsome when he stands up in tough challenges in the Moroka Swallows midfield this season.

Sibaya, 33, joined the Birds in the midst of their desperate relegation struggle last season. Unfit at first, he gained in strength and ended up playing a key role in a survival battle that came down to two goals in the last 10 minutes of a 2-0 win against Mpumalanga Black Aces.

Sibaya gives credit to coach Gordon Igesund for a remarkable comeback from what seemed a hopeless position halfway through the season.

"When I signed for Gordon I knew I had a chance, if we avoided relegation, of playing for one of the good teams that might be in the top five," he says.

Sibaya, who won two league titles and two cup trophies in six seasons for Rubin Kazan, was the most successful of the South African exports to Russia in the 2000s. The late Jacob Lekgetho had the same spread of medals.

Little has been said of the daily lives of the players - Matthew Booth, Bennet Mnguni, Japhet Zwane, Tony Coyle, Sibaya and others - who went to ply their trade in Russia.

"Looking at it now, I think it was the best years I ever had, even if it didn't seem rosy at the time," Sibaya says. "When I first got there, you could still feel the communist system everywhere you went. There was still the communist mentality and all the buildings looked the same.

"After about three years, you started seeing a lot of new structures, cinemas, McDonalds everywhere."

Russians are a guarded people, wary of outsiders, he says.

"The young generation is different from the old one, which is still stuck on the old system. The old generation look at you in a suspicious way, like, 'what the hell are you doing here?'"

Has the financially richer Premier Soccer League changed since Sibaya last played in it?

"The physical training has improved a lot - most of the things we do here are the same as in Europe. We are moving forward. I also like the excitement that we see in the crowds."

With a legion of young defensive midfielders knocking on the door, Sibaya has not been called up by Bafana coach Pitso Mosimane this year.

A warrior for the national team in its darkest times, Sibaya says he is not disappointed to be sidelined, and pleased to see Bafana enjoying success.

"Over the past few years, we managed to keep the coach for more than two years, and you could see consistency.

"It's the same now with Pitso. Nobody is bugging him and telling him who to select.

"I believe we could have done a lot better in the management of the game - and I think that's what Pitso has now."

A plain "No" is the answer when asked if coaching is on the radar.

"I don't have the patience to build. I believe players should be at a certain level. There are some things I shouldn't even be teaching players."