When I look back at my career, I believe I could have achieved much more. And I could have played beyond the borders of South Africa but I didn’t.
I don’t want to say that I’m not happy; I’m grateful, but I could have done more if I had done certain things right.
One thing I realise now that I’m older and see things differently is that as footballers, we have this thing of wanting to be comfortable.
When we get to a certain place and people treat us well, we become comfortable. We stop looking beyond where we are. A lot of great players in South Africa like Lerato Chabangu and Daine Klate – I can mention 100’s of these that finished their careers by being great in South Africa. I believe they could have gone beyond South Africa.
Personally, I took too long to teach myself how to live with different types of people. As players we want to be good to people who are good to us. We only want to create relationships with people who agree with what we want and isolate people that can help us further in life.
So I’ve taught myself that no matter what circumstances are in life, you need to adapt to how people are.
You need to learn to speak up. If you don’t like something there are ways to approach certain situations. I used to run my mouth and get so angry and that is why I changed so many clubs.
If there was a problem, I didn’t know how to deal with it, I just wanted to leave and move on. As players we need to learn how to deal with emotions properly.
After the 2007 Under-20 World Cup there were lots of clubs that were interested in signing me. Some of those teams were in Europe. But in Europe if a player comes from Africa won’t sign without trials. They want to have a look at you first.
And going for trials is what discouraged me. A team would say to me: ‘come, we want to have a look at you first’ and I would refuse because I didn’t want that. I would rather be where I had a contract so I missed out on opportunities.
But I’m at peace and I’m enjoying my career.