Pretoria-born soccer player makes Leicester debut
The 21-year-old midfielder came in as a substitute during Leicester’s 5-0 over Sheffield United on Sunday afternoon.
Pretoria-born footballer Khanya Leshabela made his Premier League debut for Leicester City in the English Premier League last week.
The 21-year-old midfielder came in as a substitute for Ayoze Perez in the 81st minute during Leicester’s 5-0 win over Sheffield United last Sunday.
Although he was born in Pretoria, Leshabela left SA for England when he was just two-years-old.
Although he is yet to play for Bafana Bafana, he was part of the SA u.20 squad during the 2019 Fifa u.20 World Cup finals in Poland.
With Leicester 5-0 up against Sheffield, Brendan Rodgers handed 21-year-old Thakgalo Leshabela from South Africa his Premier League debut #PL | #LEISHE pic.twitter.com/TzJhFPUu6X
— SuperSport (@SuperSportTV) March 14, 2021
Not much is known about the youngster as he has never played football in his birth country and never featured in top flight football until his debut on Sunday.
He joins Percy Tau as the two South African players currently playing their football in the English Premier League.
Leshabela’s coach, Brendan Rodgers described him as a hard worker.
“We’ve given a lot of young players the taste of first-team football and he’s a young player who worked very hard, he was unfortunate not to go on loan,” Rodgers said on LCFC TV.
“We had to keep him to have him around the first-team squad and got the reward for that. There’s still a long way to go for him but he’s got quality and he came into the game and showed nice confidence.”
Despite his debut, he was not called to the Bafana Bafana squad this week.
City’s second change
Well played, Ayo! pic.twitter.com/2Nzu1UagNJ
— Leicester City (@LCFC) March 14, 2021
Congratulations on your Leicester City debut, Khanya Leshabela! pic.twitter.com/Wms0q08O2v
— Leicester City (@LCFC) March 14, 2021
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