SAZI HADEBE

There was a huge debate in SA this season when we suddenly found “a young player”, in Mamelodi Sundowns striker Cassius Mailula, that we thought was good enough to play in some of the top leagues in Europe.

Well, Mailula is not in Europe because his elevation to our elite level, the Premier Soccer League, was delayed. But when you talk about Mailula being a “youngster” you could be accused of being misguided because he’s ending the current campaign as a 21-year-old.

In elite leagues in Europe when you refer to a 21 or 22-year-old player as a youngster, they laugh at you. This is what Manchester City midfielder Jack Grealish experienced this week.

Speaking to BT TV presenters after City’s 1-1 draw against Real Madrid in the semifinal of European Champions League on Tuesday night, Grealish gushed on the confidence he has when he plays with some of the “youngsters” in his team, referring to players like sensational striker Erling Haaland (22), Phil Foden (21) and Rico Lewis (18).

Haaland has scored a record 48 goals in all competitions this season and is among the array of young stars between the ages of 20 and 22 already earning top dollar at some of the great European clubs.

When you say these players are “youngsters” it sounds embarrassing, especially when you consider what some of them have already achieved at both club and international level. In SA we show how far we are from reality when we still debate whether Mailula should remain in the PSL next season or go to Europe.

Even Bafana Bafana coach Hugo Broos was dragged into this debate, and he offered that maybe we should give Mailula one more season in the PSL before we associate him with Europe.

And the reason Broos said that is not because he dislikes Mailula, but because he’s got only one nearly full season in our top-flight under his belt, considering top players of his age in Europe will be already completing three or even more seasons in June.

Haaland, Foden and Lewis at City; Eduardo Camavinga (20), Vinicius Junior (22), Rodrygo (22), Alvaro Rodriguez (18) at Real Madrid; Eric Garcia (22), Alejandro Balde (19), Pedri (20), Gavi (18) and Ansu Fati (20) at Barcelona; William Saliba (22), Emile Smith-Rowe (22), Gabriel Martinelli (21), Bukayo Saka (21) at Arsenal; and Liverpool’s Harvey Elliot (20), Fabio Carvalho (20) and Curtis Jones (22), are some of the young players at top European clubs.

But they can’t really be called youngsters because of what they’ve already achieved.

SA has a great opportunity to catch up if we can start looking after our youngsters, starting with the ones in our national under-17 side that’s been doing duty at Africa Cup of Nations Under-17 tournaments under way in Algeria.

We have a chance to make sure that names such as Siyabonga Mabena (Sundowns), Michael Dokunmu (Vittese FC, Holland), Vicky Mkhawana (Kazier Chiefs), Waylon Reenecke (Norwich FC, England) and Xavier Jodamus (Ubuntu Academy) don’t disappear. These are some of the players in our under-17 teams that have enough talent to match those of players already playing for some of the top clubs in Europe.

These players [the likes of Haaland] are not there because they were winning youth leagues, competitions and medals. They are there because they were developed properly over time and can now produce high-quality performances and consistently.
— Zipho Dlangalala

We need to stop sending our young Bafana players to average leagues like the US’s Major League Soccer (MLS) as we’ve done with former Chiefs midfielder Njabulo Blom (23) and Bongokuhle Hlongwane (22), formerly of Maritzburg United.

The MLS has always been a league used for retirement by former top European stars, but in SA because we’ve been so lazy in developing our young players, we think we can use the MLS to fast-track the development of our young and promising players.

I asked one of the respected but underused SA coaches, Zipho Dlangalala, who has a passion for developing young players, about how we can improve our situation if we want to catch up with the rest of the world.

“For us to have our players at this [top] level, the message is clear: develop high-quality young players, focusing on individual player elements. These players [the likes of Haaland] are not there because they were winning youth leagues, competitions and medals. They are there because they were developed properly over time and can now produce high-quality performances and consistently. Most of them, except for Haaland [Norway], are World Cup regulars,” said Dlangalala.

Dlangalala basically demands we go back to basics and do things right for our boys and girls at the right age. Celebrating qualifying for knockout stages of a youth tournament through the back door must end.

Dlangalala urges us to develop young players capable of solving problems at a young age because if they can’t at 17, we may as well forget seeing magic in them when they’re 22.

We’ve had many cases of promising players going to Europe at the wrong age, only to struggle when they’re there. Among the latest is Percy Tau, who left Sundowns at 24, only to fail to win a regular place at Premier League club Brighton. Tau was loaned to lower leagues in Belgium, came back to Brighton but struggled again before he was sold to Egypt club Al Ahly.

But with Tau there may have been two unfortunate scenarios that added to his struggles. Tau went to Europe late, age-wise, and was also signed by the wrong club in a league that never suited his skills. A mid-table club in the Spanish La Liga might have worked better for the Bafana striker. But at 28, it’s now too late to change his situation.

For us to do better with our young players, we have to do most of what Dlangalala is suggesting: develop high-quality young players, focusing on individual player elements.

If we had done that with the likes of Mailula, there would be no debate about whether he should go to Europe now. He would have been there long ago.

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