What's on Mthoko's mind?

Recenty, former Tottenham Hotspur striker Darren Bent showed us his top five favourite strikers & there was some upset that he left out the prolific striker, Sergio Aguero from his list. I'm going do as he did & do a top five list of my own but go further & do a list for midfielders, defenders & goalkeepers as well. You are welcome to comment below if you disagree or just want to comment. Strikers:   Personally, I like strikers that can score anywhere & anyhow. I'm fond of Italian-type strikers as opposed to dribbler strikers because I want a finisher as opposed to someone that will waste time eliminating defenders in the penalty box then lose his chance to score as well as the ball with unnecessary dribbling. I've decided to leave out the likes of Pelé, Maradona, Ronaldinho, Ronaldo Nazario, Thierry Henry, Cristiano Ronaldo & Messi in my list because they have transcended our realm & are football deities at this stage so here a...

Football is an activity most of us in the world grow up with, it's just something that always is there. It is fun to play, simple to understand & the whole world loves it. A lot of people feel world football has become too monetized & has less beauty or romance in it today. Most footballers today are academy graduates when most footballers of times past were found while playing on the street or at school with already existing talent. The problem, I feel, with academy graduate football is that it's robotic & almost too rigid & a lot of academy graduate players play as they were taught & not on impulse so they lack spontaneity & the game loses a little magic that way. Academy graduates almost lack character in the sheltered environments of their academies. I feel, modern football has made the coach & the tactics the focus & that may be a good or bad thing depending on the characters involved but I think there should be some give & take. Both th...

So, I'm watching this video  on why Americans think they suck  at soccer & they have qualified for every World Cup since 1986 except the last one in 2018, recently won the Concacaf Cup & beat South Africa not so long ago in the Mandela Cup in South Africa. We should be more upset in South Africa as a footballing country that we only last qualified for a FIFA World Cup in 2002 & rarely qualify for AFCON tournaments. So in this blog I hope to analyse why South Africa "sucks" at football. I think branding has a lot to do with things; I remember Former President Thabo Mbeki claiming our national team has a weak name in " Bafana Bafana " which means "Boys Boys" or colloquially "Our Boys" in Zulu. I do believe that a national team needs strong branding as well. How much branding plays into the psyche of players & management is debatable. While it could be embarrasing giving a team a strong brand & them failing everytime, the ...

Spain is a nation state, i.e. a state associated with a particular cultural entity (a nation) & a sovereign territorial unit, that lies on the Iberian Peninsula of Europe. Anyone who knows me would say I admire Spain because of their footballing pedigree & they're right but that is not the only reason. Although I have never been in person to Spain - media, the internet & social media has made it possible for me to see what the Spanish are like. I really do believe that Spain is indeed one of the closest country's to perfect any modern land can hope to be. Why?  • Spain still has managed to maintain their ancient cultures alive in the modern age including having a monarch of the land. Many countries around the world have opted to dispose of the ancient system of being ruled by a legitimate (descended from a royal bloodline) monarch except a few around the world. Some might say that it's of little if any importance to have a descendant of a royal bloodlin...