Why Sundowns’ Themba Zwane is a template of a star player

Themba Zwane is marking a decade at Mamelodi Sundowns this season and while it took him some time to break into the star-studded team, when his time came, he became the catalyst of the side and the conductor of their ‘shoe-shine and piano’ brand of football.

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Little is known about the Tembisa-born attacker outside of his football and if it were not for his endorsement deals, where he is sometimes obliged to show face at media events – we would most likely only see him on the football pitch.

Zwane’s coach at Sundowns, Manqoba Mngqithi has described him one of the hard working players he has ever worked with, saying he wishes to see more players of his caliber invest in perfecting their game as much as “Mshishi” does.

“I wish most footballers would take their careers as seriously as he does. There are a very few talented players who I know, who work hard like Themba. And there are a few talented footballers who are as focused as Themba and only a few footballers are passionate about football more than anything else,” said Mngqithi.

“I will not tell you anything about his life outside football because his life is football. Themba is always thinking about training and playing matches. Even when you want to take him out, he will want to complain. Talented players are usually very lazy but Themba is one of the hardest working players and I always pray that God should continuously bless them because very few players with that talent would work hard as he does,” he added.

The Downs mentor continued: “I don’t think we’ve ever heard anything negative about Themba in terms of coming to training late, not coming to training or coming to training in a bad space… never. No wonder he is successful like the likes of club legends such as Surprise Moriri who have played for a long time.”