Favorite Footballer Friday

Focus: Sfiso “Spider” Zwane Tshwane University of Technology Goalkeeper

They don’t just call him Spider for no reason because he sure has a web wrapped around the net post, his blocking skills are insane. Hailing from Mpumalanga, Piet retief Sfiso Peter Zwane is a 24 year Marketing Management graduate from Gert Sibande TVET College. At the age of 8 years Sfiso started playing football at Nqobile Primary school, shockingly most football players have moved around playing in different positions to find themselves but he has been a goalkeeper for the longest since he started playing football.

His journey in football got off to a great start, he has played quite a number of tournaments in his under 12 years from Danone which was the then national league for primary schools where his school got to play in the national level with his first time playing in a big league. He got exposed and gained a lot of experience while he was playing in the nationals for the first time, he also played in the K-Motsepe, Coca Cola, Chappies Championship (Gauteng) and Metropolitan league.

Outside of him playing as learner from Nqobile primary, in and around his community he was still a football player where at just the age of eleven (11) he was playing in the super league, growing older also came with other opportunities for him like playing in the promotional league, Castle (SAB) league, ABC Motsepe provincial league where he was playing for Tjakastad Junior Shepard for one season.

2019 Sfiso enrolled at Tshwane University of Technology for a national diploma in Entrepreneurship where he saw posters around campus about the TUT FC trials, with him having esteem issues not for a moment did he see or think of himself as a player for a whole University especially TUT with its rich football history but because of his love for the game he was prepared, he had his football kit with him so he decided to give it a go and went for trials.

Spider’s skills came through for him where he was fortunate enough to be selected to form part of the team. Although it wasn’t easy for him to be registered with the team as there minor transfer issues that he faced, so for the period where he was waiting for his clearance he has been training with Vikings, a team sponsored by TUT through Bushy Moloi which is made up of other great players within the university space.

Post the team qualifying for the SAB league, everything the fell into place with regards to his clearance and this was all with the help of his coach, his team manager and his mother being involved. His stay while playing Vikings was still challenging with him still working in himself and his confidence, furthermore his game time was almost at zero, his first play was during a substitution and he was the substitute where he also got an assist under his name for a solid distribution that led to a goal for his team. There after he started forming part of the traveling Eighteen (18) of the team which was something great for him that assisted in terms of him bonding and understanding his teammates better.

The call for the University Sport South Africa (USSA) trials for both teams (A & B) came where he trialed and was selected to form part of the team representing the university and was afforded the opportunity to play at almost all the games that his team was assigned to play. Spider played exceptionally well at the games that he conceded only one goal at the quarterfinals from the entire tournament giving him a good chance to be named goalkeeper of the tournament unfortunately him and his team came short, but his 6 out of 7 clean sheets got him an award for “Best Goalkeeper”.

Fast forward to 2020, January there were trials as the team would normally have and yet again Zwane gave a definition to the famous line “When talent meets hard work the results will be unquestionable” that after the trials he got transferred from playing for Vikings to TUT FC (University’ high performance team) wearing the famous jersey number 20 which was worn by now PSL player King Ndlovu and NDF player Sikhumbuzo “Zulu” Ncube. “This was a bittersweet moment for me because I didn’t have game time which made me doubt myself a bit” he said, however he knew that he had to work twice as hard to be in the starting Eleven (11) to improve his game time which he was well aware that it wasn’t going to be easy as he was now playing for a high intensity team so he had no choice but to improvise, adapt and overcome.

His not so new team members were welcoming and supportive, with him working hard he was able to form part of the starting Eleven (11) and showed his skills and capabilities, in the number of games he played. He was the talk of the town that a lot of people applauded him for living up to the name of the people that wore his jersey before him. When asked how he felt about the comparison his response was “Honestly, the jersey number for was the only one available for me to have, but knowing its history helps with channeling my internal motivation to be the best player as I possibly could be”.

Sfiso says that the transfer honestly validated to him the he is a great goalkeeper and that really boosted his confidence and motivated him to work even harder to be better. We would like to wish Spider and his team nothing but the best as in our eyes they will forever be champions.