'Yes, Orlando Pirates officials came and informed us that he would be joining them,' Agnes recalled.
The mother of Orlando Pirates midfielder Masindi Nemtajela has moved to clarify the long-standing spelling error of the family surname, while also revealing that the Buccaneers’ hierarchy visited them before finalising his move to the club.
Pirates’ Nemtajela’s meteoric rise
Speaking in a wide-ranging interview on PhalaPhala FM, Agnes Nemtajela expressed her delight at her son’s meteoric rise in the Betway Premiership over the past two seasons.
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After an impressive campaign with Marumo Gallants last season, the 24-year-old caught the attention of several PSL sides before committing his future to Pirates earlier this year.
“Yes, Orlando Pirates officials came and informed us that he would be joining them and that really made me happy,” Agnes recalled.
“I said, his dream is eventually coming to reality. I said to him ‘all the best my son’. He assured me that he will give it his all because since he started playing football, I have been supportive and I am proud of him.”
A spelling mistake
The proud mother also shed light on why the family’s surname appears misspelt on official documents. She explained that the correct Tshivenda spelling should actually be Nemutanzhela and not Nemtajela.
“I can’t really explain why it’s spelled that way, but what happened was that even when I got married into this family I found it that way,” she said.
“Yes, it’s supposed to be spelled that way [in Tshivenda], but it looks like when they [his father] went to register for his identification, it was misspelled.”
Nemtajela has continued his upward trajectory at the Soweto giants, earning a call-up to the Bafana Bafana team.
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He was also named in Hugo Broos’ 54-man preliminary squad, which will be trimmed to 23 before the Africa Cup of Nations kicks off in Morocco next month.
