With Bongani Khumalo having made the switch from SuperSport United to Tottenham Hotspur at 23 years old, he has now revealed what it was like speaking Zulu in the Spurs changing room with Steven Pienaar and training with the likes of Jermaine Defoe and Luka Modric.
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What was it like training with a Premier League legend like Defoe daily?
What a guy! Top man, Jerma. You've never seen anything like it. Talk about goal-hungry from training. He used to have competitions with himself. You come into training, and he'd be like, 'Bongz, watch how many goals I score today'. Listen, you better wish you were in his team in terms of small-sided games, because he wouldn't be lying. The commitment the guy showed at that level is just unreal. The professionalism, the quality that you see in training each and every single day without fail is just another level. That's probably the biggest contrast in terms of local football and their football, it's just the intense mentality and professionalism that players have, and just the whole way the thing is run. 'Train like you play' type of thing. In training, you were up against the best players in the world, and you could feel it. Some of the things you would see in training, it was like PlayStation. Luka Modric was there. The stuff that Luka does is mad. When you watch these guys play in the Premier League, at the highest level, we see amazing things on TV, but watch them train, it's unbelievable the ability they have, the awareness and intelligence. Even just being around them, the things you learn about the game is next level as well.
You arrived at Spurs at the same time as another South African, Pienaar. Was it more comforting arriving with a national teammate?
Yeah, it was great. Obviously, he was coming in from the north [he was signed from Everton] so he was also relatively new, but certainly not new to the Premier League and the players around him. Steven was a top, top player at Everton. He's respected massively within the Premier League and he was literally a Premier League star so it was completely different to me. Steven was well-known; I wasn't really known at that level, but he was a wonderful guy.
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Such a good heart, Steven, and certainly a hero of mine. Even though I played with him, still a hero of mine. I used to watch how he played at Everton, obviously when we got to the national team, we'd be together, we'd talk. Talk about the game, talk about life in England way before I even got there, so it was a beautiful moment to be like, 'Hawu ndoda, usu la?'. Now you're in q Premier League changing room speaking Zulu, so that was very nice.
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