Orlando Pirates midfielder Patrick Maswanganyi’s Bafana Bafana call-up has understandably brought joy to the Stars of Africa Football Academy for being their latest product to have made it to the senior national team.
Tito, as Maswanganyi is known in football circles, has been called up alongside Pirates teammates in Nkosinathi Sibisi and Tapelo Xoki for the upcoming international friendlies against Andorra and Algeria.
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The confirmation of Maswanganyi making it into coach Hugo Broos’ final 23-man squad came after his Man of the Match performance in the recent Soweto Derby triumph last weekend where Pirates defeated Kaizer Chiefs 3-2.
Renowned youth coach Farouk Khan, who played a huge role in 25-year-old’s development, is understandably excited about his progress.
“Firstly, at Stars of Africa we would like to congratulate him for being another one of the Stars of Africa products to have made it to the Bafana team. There has been several now that have made it to the Bafana teams even though these players don’t get called up when they are younger, which is quite a surprise to me,” said Khan, speaking exclusively to the Siya crew.
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“Maswanganyi hasn’t just become a good player now. He’s been a good player for quite a while, even before he went overseas. But he has improved tremendously as a player. I think a lot of credit must also go to the time he spent in Portugal. We rested a lot of money on his physical development. I spent something on Twitter the other day where I said a lot of things he’s doing now, he did them during the time he was with us at the academy. He’s now just a refined Maswanganyi,” concluded the ex-Chiefs assistant coach.
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