Kaizer Chiefs burgeoning youngster Mduduzi Shabalala has expressed his gratitude to the club for giving him a “challenge” after he snubbed his childhood team, Orlando Pirates. The 19-year old has enjoyed a meteoric rise at Amakhosi, quickly rising from the development structures to the first team at the beginning of the season.
Shabalala has already established himself in Arthur Zwane’s regular line-up and scored his second goal for the senior team in Chiefs’ 3-2 loss to Golden Arrows. Ahead of the Soweto Derby over the weekend, Shabalala revealed that he grew up supporting Pirates, but had to switch allegiances after joining Chiefs.
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“I was supporting Orlando Pirates, everyone at home is supporting Orlando Pirates but now since I’ve joined Kaizer Chiefs I had to change and support Kaizer Chiefs and I will die as a Kaizer fan,” Shabalala told journalists at a press conference.
The teenage forward went on to say that he has since influenced other members of his family to support Chiefs, but his father refuses to change allegiance.
“Old lady, sisters and kids but (father), he refuses, even now he says (Pirates) will beat (Chiefs), I don’t understand,” he said.
Shabalala detailed his journey coming up as a youngster and revealed that he went to trials at Pirates, but felt that he needed a better challenge, which he got at Chiefs.
“Coach Sfiso played a big role in my life, he’s the one who took me to Kaizer Chiefs. Firstly we started to trial at Orlando Pirates but it didn’t work out, I told him that it’s easy there at Pirates, I want to go to Kaizer Chiefs,” he explained.
“At Kaizer Chiefs they made it difficult for me, I trialed for about three to four months in a trial and I told him that’s what I want in football. I want a challenge and it happened that I got the challenge and I was promoted to the reserve team.
He went on to describe his success in the Gauteng Development League with the under-17s, as well as his Player of the Tournament award at the national team level. After that, he was promoted to the senior team.
