Kagisho Dikgacoi, one of South African football's greatest exports having played close to decade in English football, sat down with Soccer Laduma to discuss what his first experience in the Premier League with Fulham was like, and why he slapped Scott Parker on his EPL debut.
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You were flying high at the end of the 2008/09 season with Golden Arrows; how did the move to Fulham come about?
If I remember well, we were playing in England against Australia with Bafana. We flew back to South Africa from the UK a week after and that's when I was invited for a two-week assessment back in 2008. I spent two weeks with Fulham to train and they showed interest, and they signed me up in 2009 from Golden Arrows.
It was not a dream debut for you in the Premier League as you were sent off for slapping Scott Parker. What did he say to you to react in that way?
Well, it was my first Premier League game. Prior to that, I had played a couple of cup games, particularly in the FA Cup, and during the match there was a bit of a scuffle and I think I lost it right there. Not intentionally trying to hurt Scott [Parker], but it just happened that my hand landed on his face, and I was sent off. It was something that I had to put behind me and forget so I can keep pushing to get back into the team after my suspension.
What was it like being involved in a dressing room with such big players at Craven Cottage?
Yeah, it was great. We had quite a good squad, we had big names. We had the likes of Damian Duff who played at Chelsea, Eidur Gudjohnsen who came from Barcelona to play with us, and [Bobby] Zamora who played for Tottenham [Hotspur]. We actually had a good season even though I didn't really enjoy some of it because of the injuries, but we had a good run that season. We even got to the final of the UEFA Cup [now UEFA Europa League] and it was a great season for me. I actually enjoyed playing amongst that crop of players.
You were part of the Fulham side that made that historic run to the 2010 Europa League final. What was the atmosphere like in the dressing room en route to meeting Atletico Madrid in the final?
If you can remember, we were the underdogs of the tournament. As soon as we beat Juventus in the quarter-finals, that's when we thought we could compete even in the final. Around those weeks, there was a volcano that erupted in Iceland, and it made it difficult for us sometimes to travel to other countries. We had to travel by road or train, it would take a lot of us spending time on the road and not getting enough rest, and we had a lot of Premier League games that we needed to catch up on. I remember three days before the final, we had to play a very good Arsenal – unfortunately for us we lost 4-0 – but our main focus was to compete in that final, of which I think we did well.
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We were unfortunate to lose to that Atletico side of Sergio Aguero and Diego Forlan, but overall, everybody was impressed. Even the chairman, Mr. [Mohamed] Al-Fayed, came after the game and congratulated us for that difficult journey we took. We were the underdogs and nobody expected us to even get as far as the quarter-finals, and that is something I am proud of. Getting to the final against Atletico Madrid, beating the likes of Juventus and Shakhtar Donetsk.
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