Vila: I Want To Smell The Grass Again

It’s Sibusiso Vilakazi’s best season to date in a Mamelodi Sundowns shirt when you look at his numbers, and the campaign is not even over yet.   

“I have been blessed by not being injured this season, that was the setback previously,” the attacker admits as he discusses his 10 goals and 11 assists from 32 matches.

‘Vila’ has always been in the thick of things, but was side-lined for much of the previous campaign and very nearly missed the Africa Cup of Nations in Egypt with Bafana Bafana, too.

He bounced back just in time to make the squad.

“I am grateful for being injury-free, and when that happens the coaches will give you the opportunity, and I think I have done the job the best way I can. My priority has been to do my best to help the team. That’s my motto this season. I believe I can get better once we resume football because Sundowns is a team determined to get more trophies,” he adds.

Vilakazi is on the edge waiting for football to return, under strict guidelines, of course.

“I want to smell the grass again, get the feel of the ball on my boots, wear the training kit and going for it again and hearing the coach give us that pep-talk again, that we are back. Those are the things that I am looking forward to and to see how we go about the remaining games and the Nedbank Cup, that’s exciting.”

Sundowns were second on the Absa Premiership table with nine matches to go before the league was suspended because of the Covid19 pandemic in March.

“There’s a positive side and the negative side of the break – the negative being that it has gone on beyond what we anticipated and led to a bit of frustration,” says Vilakazi.

“We thought by now we would be back doing what we do best, which is playing football. We thought things would get back to normal in terms of it being okay for us to go back, does it make sense and given the medical greenlight. But the positive side is of course the opportunity to bond with our families because we are away so much. We participate in the CAF Champions League and that in itself takes so much time away from family, the beautiful side is seeing your children daily now. It’s how we test ourselves in Africa to see how far we can go, so it has the negative and the positive side.”