Pic Courtesy: MP Black Aces Instagram
The PSL Awards took place last night and the top goal scorer, Collins Mbesuma received the least amount of money for his efforts – going home with R25 000. This is due to the fact that he only scored 14 goals throughout the entire season. This has been an ongoing problem in local soccer for a while now. The question is, what is the root cause of the poor finishing in front of the net and how can we resolve it?
Collins was the last player to score 25 goals or more and that was 11 seasons ago. Now aged 33 he’s this season’s leading marksman. If you compare these stats to other leagues across the African continent and the rest of the world you’ll realise that we are far behind in that regard. In the Spanish La Liga, Luis Suarez scored 40 goals alone and the rest of the top 10 in that league still bagged more goals than our top scorer.
This has affected our national team’s performance and as a result we’re on the brink of not qualifying for Afcon 2017. We often find ourselves in situations where we outplay our opposition but still fail to win matches because of our lack of killer instinct in front of the net. A lot of money is being injected into our football and we can’t be complacent and settle for these results.
So how can we solve this problem and ensure that we produce top quality strikers in the future? SAFA should turn more of their attention to developing aspiring footballers at grassroots level. South Africa has talent in abundance, but it’s not nurtured well. Most teams abroad scout players at a young age and work on both their strength and shortcomings until they’re equipped with all the technicalities and skills they need to play at professional level. It’s difficult for a coach to teach a 29 year old player how to score goals.
What else do you think can be done to improve the quality of goal scoring in the PSL?
