It usually doesn’t end well when one makes a conclusion about anything in football, especially without getting a full picture.
Bafana Bafana coach Hugo Broos got a rude awakening last year when he called up striker Victor Letsoalo, expecting him to bang in the goals at international level the same way he was doing at Royal AM. The Bafana coach found himself having to explain why he had to leave Letsoalo out of his squad ahead of a trip to play Morocco in a 2023 Africa Cup of Nations qualifier in June.
Letsoalo had been part of Broos’s team for almost all the Bafana games since he took over in the middle of 2021. And when Broos was asked why he had omitted Letsoalo — a player who was chasing the PSL’s Golden Boot award having scored 15 league goals, eight behind Mamelodi Sundowns’ Peter Shalulile who eventually won it — he had some explaining to do.
“I have followed Victor again. We had Victor with us in the games before. He played one game and I don’t think for a moment Victor is what we’re looking for. He scores penalties, so he’s not so good any more for a striker. He scored nine penalties. So if you take that off from his figures, he is not so good any more for a striker,” the Bafana coach said.
Broos’s comments don't seem to have inspired Letsoalo to pump in the goals for his new club Sekhukhune United, where he’s only scored once and provided two assists in 10 league matches this season.
Perhaps Broos is to be blamed for killing the 29-year-old’s confidence. But what cannot be disputed is the truth in what Broos says about Letsoalo’s scoring rate — only six of his 15 league goals came from open play.
Why am I going back to this old story, you might ask? Well, this came to my mind as I noticed how some SA football fans, especially those following Kaizer Chiefs, are reacting to their new Burundian-born striker Bonfils-Caleb Bimenyimana, after scoring six goals in the five league matches he’s played for the club. It’s a wonderful record since Shalulile, who has scored the same number of league goals as the Chiefs striker, has played three more games.
That’s what strikers like (Erling) Haaland are paid top dollar for — to score goals from all angles and when nobody expects.
The difference is that all of Shalulile’s goals came in open play while four of Bimenyimana’s strikes, including a record hat-trick against Stellenbosch FC on Sunday, came from the penalty spot. So, like Letsoalo, Bimenyimana would perhaps not qualify as a striker for Bafana if he was a South African because he’s not scoring the majority of his goals from open play.
That little fact has not, however, stopped some Chiefs fans and jokers on social media, from claiming that the only difference between Bimenyimana and Manchester City’s goal machine Erling Haaland is the location. It really is a joke because the Norwegian has scored 20 goals in all competitions in just 13 matches he’s played for the English club. So, seriously there’s nothing to compare there.
But that shouldn’t take away from the fact that when Bimenyimana, whose hard-to-pronounce surname has seen local fans provide him the nickname "BMW Emnyama" (Black BMW), arrived on our shores there was a lot of scepticism about his scoring prowess. Even Chiefs coach Arthur Zwane first sent Bimenyimana back to his country after a trial, a sign that he was not fully convinced. Bimenyimana was only recalled to Naturena when it became apparent that they had not signed a single marksman to replace the four strikers, Bernard Parker, Samir Nurković, Leonardo Castro and Lazarous Kambole, the club had let go at the end of last season.
So far things are looking good for Bimenyimana but that doesn’t mean you can count me among those who are convinced he’s the sort of quality that Shalulile, for instance, provides for Sundowns. Give the Burundian maybe 10 more games and let’s see how many goals he scores from open play. Perhaps we can talk after that.
What’s good for Bimenyimana is that he’s almost guaranteed to start a game at Chiefs at the moment, especially because they’re yet to sign players he can compete with for the No 9 jersey. Because Chiefs are so thin up front, you wonder how and where they’ll get their goals if Bimenyimana were to get injured or be suspended — the reason Zwane pulled him out early in Sunday’s game.
What could provide some comfort is that the two goals he scored were not easy as he had to adjust his body to get to the ball before the opposition defence. But that’s what strikers like Haaland are paid top dollar for — to score goals from all angles and when nobody expects.
The problem with the goalscoring situation in the PSL is that those who are scoring a few goals are not the ones who qualify to play for Bafana. Almost every PSL team has played 10 league games but the only SA player close to Shalulile and Bimenyimana with goals is SuperSport United striker Bradley Grobler who has netted five. But at 34, Grobler can’t be expected to carry Bafana when he never did so in his prime.
Khanyisa Mayo, the 24-year-old striker who has impressed Broos the most among those in the PSL in recent months, has only scored three times in nine league games for Cape Town City this season.
How we wish Broos had plenty of Haalands to choose from in the PSL.
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