Themba Zwane has never been the type of player to talk a lot. Whenever he must address the media, as part of his duties as captain, he is reserved and keeps most of his responses to three or four sentences.
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It's not because he does not like the media. The Mamelodi Sundowns midfielder prefers to do his talking on the pitch and, boy, his performances have made enough noise to make him one of the most appreciated stars in the PSL era.
When he was introduced to the media after Sundowns signed him from amateur side M Tigers in 2011, a lot of the attention was on Teko Modise, who was unveiled on the same day at a press conference at Chloorkop. Today, more than a decade later, Zwane is mentioned in the same breath as Modise and other Sundowns greats such as Surprise Moriri, Daniel Mudau and Roger Feutmba.
It took a loan spell at Mpumalanga Black Aces, between 2013 and 2014, for Zwane to properly introduce himself to South African football, with the late Clive Barker comparing him to Doctor Khumalo.
When he returned to Sundowns in 2014, the journey to arguably one of the finest success stories in PSL history began.
In his time at Sundowns, the 35-year-old popularly known as 'Mshishi' has won eight league titles and all the knockout competition trophies on offer in the domestic game. On the continent, Zwane has three titles: the CAF Champions League, the CAF Super Cup as well as the African Football League, an honour only he and Denis Onyango hold.
And after some seasons of falling short, Zwane finally got his hands on the PSL Footballer of the Season award after leading Sundowns to the title in 2019/20 campaign.
His consistency has been hard to ignore over the years, and someone who can attest to this is Bafana Bafana coach Hugo Broos. Initially, Broos was not interested in including Zwane in his squad, but he had to swallow his pride and admit that he could no longer leave the player out.
Now, Broos finds it difficult to leave Zwane out of his starting line-up, and often wonders who will replace the midfielder in future. The experienced player is now just three caps away from reaching 50 appearances for the national team.
Before the start of the new season, Sundowns extended Zwane's contract by a year, which means this could be his final campaign with the Tshwane giants. But knowing how hard he works behind the scenes, there is a good chance that Sundowns will keep him beyond the end of this season.
