MOGAMAD ALLIE: US football pipeline has served our players well

The pipeline to American football, opened by Kaizer Motaung in 1968 when he joined Atlanta Chiefs in the inaugural season of the old North American Soccer League (NASL), seems to be reopening again at an opportune time for talented young SA footballers to further their careers and gain valuable life and sporting experience.

Playing in a league ranked in the world’s top 20 and improving all the time should benefit not only the players but also the national team, especially at a time when South Africans are finding it difficult to break into Europe’s top leagues. As it is, the MLS (Major League Soccer) is proving to be a useful stepping stone, particularly for players from the US and surrounding countries, to move to the bigger leagues of Europe.

Last weekend former Kaizer Chiefs midfielder Njabulo Blom made his first start in the MLS for St Louis City, a club coached by former Amakhosi defender Bradley Carnell. Playing the entire 90 minutes, the 23-year-old impressed in his midfield holding role as his new team continued their 100% start with a 3-1 win over Charlotte in front of more than 22,000 fans at their City Park ground on Sunday.

The Missouri-based club, which also has as sporting director Luke Pfannenstiel, the German-born goalkeeper who spent a season with Orlando Pirates in the 1996-97 campaign, registered a second consecutive win after coming from behind to beat Austin on the opening day of the season when Blom came on as a 17th-minute substitute for the injured former Aston Villa midfielder Indiana Vassilev.

Also on Sunday, former Maritzburg United striker Bongokuhle Hlongwane played the full 90 minutes for Minnesota United against FC Dallas, for whom former under-20 international Katlego “Tsiki” Ntsabaleng came on as a 67th-minute substitute.

Hlongwane, who joined Minnesota last January, has already won praise from national coach Hugo Broos, who has seen a noticeable improvement in the 22-year-old striker’s game since his move to the MLS. “He is fast, he is more powerful since he started playing football in America,” the Belgian told the media after the striker netted a brace in Bafana Bafana’s 2-1 friendly victory over Mozambique in November.

Hopefully Broos will see a similar improvement in Blom should the midfielder be called up for the decisive back-to-back Africa Cup of Nations qualifiers against Liberia in two weeks’ time.

Hlongwane has quickly established himself as a regular at Minnesota, starting in 18 of the 29 appearances he made for the club last season. Of course, football fans in the upper mid-western state would be familiar with SA talent as the legendary Ace Ntsoelengoe, one of SA’s all-time greats, starred for Minnesota Kicks in the mid-1970s.

The late former Kaizer Chiefs attacker scored 50 goals in 155 appearances, putting him fifth on the team’s all-time scoring list. Overall, Ntsoelengoe played for 11 seasons in the NASL, netting 94 goals to end seventh on the league’s all-time scoring list. He was duly inducted into the US Soccer Hall of Fame in 2003.

Ntsabeleng, a youth product of Farouk Khan’s highly regarded Stars of Africa Academy before moving to Kaizer Chiefs and Mamelodi Sundowns, for whom he appeared in the reserve teams, moved to the US in 2018 after being offered a scholarship by Johannesburg-born Kyle Timm to the University of Coastal Carolina where Timm was assistant coach at the time.

The 25-year-old Daveyton-born midfielder, who earned a degree in Sports and Fitness Administration, worked his way through the US college system and was signed by FC Dallas last season. He established himself as a regular, making 27 appearances during the campaign.

Hopefully Hlongwane, Blom and Ntsabeleng will pave the way for more young South Africans to be recruited by US clubs through the quality of their performances, just like Motaung did when he played for Atlanta Chiefs in 1968. Chincha Guluva proved to be a hit with the club and as a 24-year-old attacker he netted a club record 16 goals in 15 games to be honoured with the league’s Rookie of the Year award.

Motaung’s class and quality would pave the way for others to follow as top players such as Ntsoelengoe, Namibian-born Herman “Pele” Blaschke, Bernard “Dancing Shoes” Hartze, Phil “Mr Jones” Setshedi, Jomo Sono and others were recruited by NASL clubs in the 1970s.

Eddie Firmani, the Cape Town-born striker who would go on to win three caps for Italy, also played a role in recruiting SA players to the NASL during his time as coach, first of Tampa Bay Rowdies  in 1975 when he had Hartze (ex-Cape Town Spurs) and Derek Smethurst (ex-Durban City) and former Rangers defender Mike Connell in his team, and later at New York Cosmos between 1977 and 1979 when Sono played alongside some of the game’s all-time greats such as Pele, Franz Beckenbauer and Carlos Alberto.

Former Arcadia Shepherds winger Roy Wegerle would follow Motaung in winning the Rookie of the Year award in 1984 as he went on to represent the US at the 1994 and 1998 World Cups.

In later years players like Shaun Bartlett, Doctor Khumalo, David Byrne, Miguel Timm, George Lebese, Danleigh Borman, Nkosinathi Nhleko and Kamohelo Mokotjo, among others, would all play in the US leagues, so there is a solid foundation for the new generation of SA footballers to build upon.