Josta Dladla was one of the South African footballers fortunate enough to move to Europe at an early age when he joined Aarhus GF, and in a recent sit-down with Soccer Laduma, he discussed his time in Denmark as well as the controversy he caused with Sibusiso Zuma.
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The late 1990s and early 2000s proved to be the golden era of South African players moving abroad as the nation witnessed a large exodus of the country's most talent footballers take their talents to Europe's biggest leagues. While many of the players at the time would make the switch as relatively experienced campaigners, Dladla traded Wits University for Aarhus at only 21 years old.
Asked about how the move to the Danish giants came to fruition and how he adapted to life in Scandinavia that early into his adulthood, the former Bafana Bafana international said: "Well, I have no idea how it [the transfer] happened. I think the team [Wits] was just struggling back then. Roger De Sa was the coach and, apparently, they wanted to make a bit of money and they [AGF] were the team that was interested. They saw the tapes, they liked what they saw, but they just wanted to see the person. So it was more a thing of, 'If Josta goes there, then we could make a bit of money out it and it will also be good for his career'. I think I was just at the right place at the right time. AGF at that time were going through a lot and they needed somebody to come and save them, and I just so happened to be the 21-year-old that got that opportunity to play overseas and be the person that was going to help them make it out of the relegation zone."
With the Soweto native arriving at Ceres Park in the off-season of 2001, he went on to elaborate on how it was being integrated into an environment that was so highly pressurised, while also still adapting culturally.
"Look, as a 21-year-old, it was bliss. I had never left my parents before and now I was living by myself in hotels, being able to afford things I always wanted. I just hit the ground running; I had to. We always think that South African football is not that good, but we are good. Going there it was not that difficult for me to adapt to the pace of the game, because I was already a regular player in the PSL. Nice experience, lifestyle was totally different, the professionalism was totally different, just the lifestyle as a whole was something else so I learnt a lot of things, but I had to learn them quickly because I was alone. It's either I was going to go out there and party a lot or go out there and prove to a lot of people that AGF did not make a mistake by signing me."
Two years before Dladla traded life in Johannesburg for Aarhus, Sibusiso Zuma made the switch from Orlando Pirates to FC Copenhagen. With the pair having been in Denmark around the same time, the six-cap international revealed that he caused a bit of controversy when some of the country's media asked him how he sees himself faring in comparison to his compatriot.
"I got there, and, I mean, this is the man [Zuma] that was immensely respected at FC Copenhagen, and I came there as a youngster believing that I was the best. You know when you're young, you're naïve about a lot of things, and I had the arrogance to say that 'I'm the best'.
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"I remember one time a journalist came to me about Zuma being the best in the country, and I kind of brushed it off and told him that I thought I was just as good, and that I was the next Zuma. That statement got amplified and it was all over the newspapers that Josta said, 'Yeah, I'm the best as well'. However, it was not like that, it was more the confidence that I had in myself. I could never play football if I didn't think that I was the best at what I do, but obviously other people might look at it like, 'Yea, this guy is arrogant, disrespectful,' and all those types of things. I was young, and in terms of media training, most of us never had those things and when you're put into a situation to say something, you end up saying something and they put it in big letters as a headline, something to the effect of 'I'm better than Zuma', but being older now, I acknowledge now that this is the person that got there and opened the doors for many of us, so much respect to him."
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