‘Look at Themba Zwane’ - Rulani Mokwena Gives Thembinkosi Lorch Advice After Bafana Snub

MC Alger coach Rulani Mokwena has added his voice to the ongoing debate about the exclusion of in-form Thembinkosi Lorch from the South Africa national team squad.

Lorch has been snubbed by Bafana Bafana coach Hugo Broos despite a great run of form at Moroccan giants Wydad Athletic Club which has seen him score five goals and provide three assists in nine games.

Broos has made it clear that he has no intentions of calling up the 32-year-old as he considers him ‘old’ but not all agree with him.

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Some fans and ex-players, including legendary defender Lucas Radebe, feel Lorch’s form should get him in the national team but Broos has stood his ground.

However, Mokwena is looking at it differently, pointing to a past case when Broos had made a similar decision but changed his mind.

The case in point involves Mamelodi Sundowns playmaker Themba Zwane, who had seen the Bafana door locked for him by Broos for being ‘old,’ but the coach later rescinded his decision in September 2022 and benefited greatly from the player’s quality in the years that followed.

“For Lorch, he just needs to have a look at Themba Zwane as a source of inspiration, because Themba was in the same position as that he is in at this moment in time, just a few months ago,” Mokwena told the media as quoted by iDiski Times.

“And I remember saying to Mshishi [Themba Zwane] ‘You’ve got to be so good – so so good that it’s difficult to ignore you’. And that’s exactly what Mshishi did.

“You know Themba Zwane was so good that even though the coach at that time felt that he didn’t want Themba Zwane for reasons that we had to respect, for sure, also because he mentioned them.

“And also, to the credit of Hugo Broos, he mentioned that that was one of the things that he felt he, in the earlier parts of his reign as a head coach, he had gotten wrong – and for a coach to say this publicly, you’ve got to also give a lot of credit to Hugo Broos for this.”

Mokwena then offered some hope for Lorch, who has been a revelation since signing for Wydad initially on a six-month loan in January, before making the move permanent in August.

“And so that means that if he could rescind his opinion about Themba Zwane, I think for sure he if Lorch continues the way he is doing – I hear very good things from Wydad, from the president, who I speak to quite regularly, about his conduct and about his professionalism, about his performance, about his character in the change room, if he continues like this for sure there are a lot of possibilities to be re-inducted in the Bafana fold,” he added.

Mokwena knows Lorch too well as he signed him for Sundowns from Orlando Pirates in January 2024 before luring him to Morocco during his ill-fated short nine-month spell at Wydad.