Scoring goals is a genuine passion for the UP-Tuks striker, Nhlanhla Mabaso.
When he “fluffs” a goal scoring opportunity knowing he has led his teammates down he really feels bad. Afterwards, he will reflect on what went wrong. It is important to him to make sure it does not happen again. Mabaso has a good reason for doing so.
“The main job for any striker is to score goals. How you do it does not matter. It is what any coach expects from his strikers. That is why I feel bad when I miss putting the ball away into the back of the net.”
The 20-year old first year Sports Science student, Mabaso, is still a rookie when it comes to playing Varsity Cup Football. He only made his debut for UP-Tuks this season which means he is not yet always guaranteed a slot in the starting line-up. However, every time he takes to the field his only mission is to impact on the outcome of the game. So far he has scored two goals which means he is one of UP-Tuks’s top goal scorers.
He is in a friendly rivalry with his teammate, Chinedu Okolo, who has also scored two goals.
“Chinedu told me that he is going to be the team’s top goal scorer. I told him there is no way that a defender will be able to score the most goals. But it is special to play with someone like, Chinedu, who can score at crucial times. In the end, it does not really matter who put the ball away into the back of the net. All that is important is that we win.”
Mabaso ascribes his best abilities as a striker being fast, being confident on the ball as well as being clinical. He is so serious about being a fast and precise striker that at times while he was still at TuksSport High School, he would ask some of his mates like Clarence Munyai, who is a world-class sprinter, for advice.
“On the occasions, they helped me we went to the track late at night when everybody has finished training so they could show me what I needed to do to be that little bit faster. It is only one of the things I have done on my own to ensure I become a better player.”
According to Mabaso, it was his dad, Jan, who inspired him to play football.
“In his playing days, he used to be quite good. He was a defender nicknamed ‘Chilliboy’. It was the sort of the cool nicknames they gave to players those days. My dad’s nickname had to do to him being quite hot on defence.”
If there is one thing, Mabaso really appreciates it is the messages of encouragement he still gets from people who knew him from when he was still playing on grassless pitches outside Rustenburg.
UP-Tuks is playing UWC away tomorrow in what is a must-win game if they want to qualify for the Varsity semi-finals. Kickoff is at 16:00.
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