Going for gold

This season has the makings of a big one for SuperSport United striker Bradley Grobler.

So far, after 11 games with Matsatsantsa, Grobler has scored an incredible 10 goals.

I heard talk about a 20-goal striker in a radio skit on Metro FM’s Marawa Sports Worldwide evening show.

It has become a bit of a myth in the PSL in recent years, with Bafana Bafana great Siyabonga Nomvethe being the last player to achieve this feat back in 2011/12.

So can this finally be the season in which a South African crosses that mark?

Grobler has goalscoring running through his veins and now at 32 years can safely say that he has written his own chapter of the Grobler legacy in football.

His father Les Grobler is a fan-favourite at Moroka Swallows, where he led the line of an exciting Maswaiswai attack of some great names such as Calvin Petersen and Noel Cousins and my personal favourite player Steve Sekano.

SuperSport as a team have scored 19 and the former Silver Stars youngster is responsible for 10 of them, quite impressive if you look at it that way and you start talking percentages and stuff.

That’s the type of talk reserved for performance analysts and I’m sure these guys would say “if he continues to score at the current rate, he will pass the 20-goal mark in the 19 matches he has in the 30-game league”.

We all so desperately want one of our SA strikers to achieve the feat, and we’ve become so desperate that we would even take 20 as the final number.

We’re not even talking about 25 and maybe 30 goals, no!

I thus fear our lack of goal-getters is leading to poor results because: “Goals win matches. If you don’t score, you don’t win”.

That’s how it works in football and my fear is that many players and fans don’t seem to understand that.

It had been a while since I heard a striker talk up his ambition of reaching a certain target, and I don’t think guys are obsessed enough about achieving such individual targets.

And it’s achievable for guys to mathematically pace their way to 20 goals because there are 30 matches.

After spending time with coaches and players in press interactions this past week, I hear guys talk about wins, draws and losses more than goals.

Imagine, if Bradley and company add a few braces, hattricks or even a haul or glut, why not?

I’m not one to dwell on what’s wrong, I’m about accepting what’s wrong and moving on using what’s right about it to your benefit.

Cape-born Swallows man Ruzaigh Gamildien is there in the mix with eights goals, and now we’re talking about an attacking midfielder or modern wide-attacker.

So basically, Themba Zwane’s eight goals for Mamelodi Sundowns complete what could be quite a nice South African attack for Bafana Bafana head coach Molefi Ntseki. And the beautiful thing about it is that if we remove Grobler and add Percy Tau, the combinations work and has even more potential.

This is how I would manage the current situation that we’re in currently if I was the Bafana Bafana head coach.

I hope he’s chirping the guys on WhatsApp about their form and player awards available to them.

That’s what I would do.

It’s encouraging also that Mdu Mdantsane at Cape Town City has seven goals as well as Paarl’s own Amigo Luvuyo Memela, who’s with Benni McCarthy at AmaZulu.

Before I go, City suffered defeat against Kaizer Chiefs because they didn’t convert their chances, so they only have themselves to blame.

And Chiefs is most beatable right now because those youngsters at Amakhosi are going to be more experienced when they meet again.

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