If there's one big trait that players in the South African football league lack, especially those in the Premier Soccer League, it is consistency.
We have seen so many one-season wonders in our top flight, it's unbelievable.
One player may be top this year but in the next 12 months you're almost guaranteed he'll drop his guard so low that he'll be almost unrecognisable.
There could be many social factors and ills that could led to this malaise, and the biggest could be how our players are always not ready to handle the pressure and riches that come with the acknowledgment of their best season.
Take Thembinkosi Lorch of Orlando Pirates for instance. He was the PSL's Player of the Season and Players' Player of Season at the end of the 2018-19 campaign.
I wonder how many people remember his best game in 2019-20, a season in which he scored a paltry three goals in 26 matches in all competitions before its conclusion in a bio-bubble in September this year.
A season before that, the same Lorch had played 40 matches for the Buccaneers and contributed 15 goals — a great return for a player who's not really a striker, but rather a supporter for the sharpshooters.
Lorch was distracted by so many things last season and couldn't help his club mount a serious challenge to the league title. It also may well be that the change of coaches — Bucs had three last season — affected his game somehow.
Well, we're always ready with excuses. Anyway.
Lorch's game lacked the individual brilliance that he showed when Bucs came close to wrestling the title for the second season running from Mamelodi Sundowns.
But Lorch has good company in players falling in the category of one-season wonders in the PSL era.
The glittering list of 24 former SA footballers of the season are: Wilfred Mugeyi, Raphael Chukwu, Roger Feutmba, Siyabonga Nomvethe, Benjamin Mwaruwaru, Jabu Pule, Moeneeb Josephs, Tinashe Nengomasha, Sandile Ndlovu, Surprise Moriri, Godfrey Sapula, Itumeleng Khune, Teko Modise, Katlego Mphela, Thulani Serero, Sibusiso Vilakazi, Tefu Mashamaite, Khama Billiat, Lebogang Manyama, Percy Tau, Lorch, Themba Zwane.
Only Nomvethe's and Khune's names appear twice. But, wait, those names are not appearing twice because they won this remarkable gong in two successive seasons. No.
Khune, one of only two goalkeepers in the list (the other is Josephs) won it in the 2008-09 and 2012-13 seasons.
Nomvethe, one of the select five that left our shores not long after winning the accolade (the others are Mwaruwaru, Serero, Manyama and Percy Tau) won it in the 1999/2000 season before winning it again a decade later in 2011-12. He was remarkable, that Bhele Nomvethe.
But why do I have to bore everyone with these names so late in the year? The reason is simple.
It is because I can't — I just can't — contain my excitement at the prospect of seeing last season's winner, Themba Zwane, repeating it again at the end of the current campaign.
Mshishi has been simply fabulous, so far producing exhilarating performance after performance for Mamelodi Sundowns in the DStv Premiership.
Zwane's man-of-the-match displays have been accompanied by seven goals in seven league matches — some of those matches coming in trying times when he and his teammates had just lost two former friends and colleagues Anele Ngcongca and Motjeka Madisha on SA's roads.
What a remarkable resilience and mental strength that's being showed by Zwane and the whole of the Sundowns team. Maybe it's one way they're trying to soothe their incredible sorrow.
But what I really wish is that Zwane remains healthy, humble and that he, simply, doesn't stop producing those top-class performances. He mustn't follow what Lorch and others did after being crowned as SA's best players.
For Zwane it's even much easier to remain consistent because he's in a team blessed with so many players with great talent.
One of those is Namibian striker Peter Shalulile, who was among the best players last season when he was with the now-defunct Highlands Park. That Zwane-Shalulile combination has already delivered a number of assists and 11 league goals between them.
You add a fit Kermit Erasmus into that scenario, then a whole lot of PSL clubs find themselves in serious, serious trouble when facing the Brazilians.
So, yes, Zwane has a great chance this to do what's never been done by any player in SA football in the PSL era. I wish Mshishi all the best because he deserves to be the best. In fact, he is the best.
I wish everyone a wonderful festive season and a happy 2021. Cheers.
