Johannesburg – Another young South African football player is following in the footsteps of soccer greats Lucas Radede, Benni McCarthy, Quinton Fortune, Mark Fish and Shaun Bartlett, to name just a few, in putting Mzansi football on the map.
Thakgalo “Khanya” Leshabela is the new kid on the block, receiving rounds of praise from his Leicester City manager Brendan Rodgers, as well as the English media, after making his firstteam debut with the English Premier League side.
Having moved from Pretoria with his parents as a two-yearold, Leshabela, 21, joined the Foxes’ academy in 2013, ultimately making his long-awaited English top-flight debut in their 5-0 victory over Sheffield United last Sunday.
The win moved Leicester into third place on the Premier League log.
The midfield star was introduced in the 81st minute of the clash at the King Power Stadium for Ayoze Perez, after starting from the bench seven times this season in all competitions.
“Yeah [he’s worked] very [hard], we’ve given a lot of young players their taste of first-team football and he’s a young player who’s worked very hard, he was unfortunate not to go on loan,” Rodgers explained via Leceister City FC TV channel.
“We had to keep him to have him around the first-team squad and got his reward for that. There’s still a long way to go for him but he’s got quality and he came into the game again showing nice confidence.”
He started out as development team youth player in 2013, rising through the youth and junior ranks until he was promoted to the second team at the age of 18, where he played for the under-23 side, then the latest promotion to the first team, according to the Leceister City website.
As a a development quad winger, in 2019 Leshabela signed a new three-and-a-halfyear contract with Leicester until 2022.
The same year in November he was included in Claude Puel’s squad for a Carabao game against Southampton. Leshabela represented SA at the Under-20 Africa Cup of Nations and Under-20 World Cup in 2019 under former national youth team coach Thabo Senong.
He becomes the second South African in less than three months to turn out for a Premier League side after Percy Tau was recalled from his loan spell in Belgium by Brighton Hove Albion in January.
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