Durban — AmaZulu's Thabo Qalinge has opened up about his dark times with the club as he shares how being honest with himself helped him cope with arguably the toughest period of his career.
The flying winger delivered yet another splendid performance as Usuthu demolished Kaizer Chiefs last week and appears to be working his way back to his best form.
Qalinge and teammate Pule Ekstein were deemed surplus to requirements by previous head coach Brandon Truter and were relegated to training with the Usuthu DStv Diski Challenge (DDC) side, a new low for the experienced duo.
However, both of them have since bounced back and have started forging decent runs under coach Romain Folz and Qalinge believes his respect for the game and general attitude aided him during the period he was frozen out.
“I needed to be honest in understanding football, even when things were not going Okay but it's being honest with yourself and having integrity by training well and not sulking," said Qalinge to members of the media.
"Those are the types of things that kept me going as did training with those DDC boys and seeing how committed they are. They are a hardworking bunch and you can see with their position on the log, it's not by chance but their hard work, so that took me back to when I was their age and my engagements with them gave me goosebumps, so those are the sort of things that kept me going.“
Qalinge said that he held no grudges towards Truter and remains in close contact with him.
The 31-year-old has struggled to replicate the kind of form that saw him earn a move to Soweto giants Orlando Pirates in 2014, going in and out of the Buccaneers squad before leaving for SuperSport United in 2019 where he also struggled for game time.
The former Mpumalanga Black Aces man could not single out a reason for his underwhelming progression over the years but opted to show respect to some of the league’s best players who made their breakthrough with him at Amazayoni.
“Football is a rollercoaster of a game and it's not all the time where a player can stay at the top for a very long time. That's why we applaud players like Themba Zwane who continue to perform at the highest level for a sustained period the way he's been doing it,” he said.
IOL Sport