A lot of eyebrows were raised when Dutch-born Simon Van Duivenbooden’s name was included in the Bafana Bafana preliminary squad.
The squad will play against Uganda and Sudan in the Africa Cup of Nations (Afcon) qualifiers in September.
It was a question of Simon: Who?
South Africans do not know Van Duivenbooden from a bar of soap because he has not played in the country.
Eligible to play for Bafana
The 22-year-old skyscraper was born in Uithoorn, the Netherlands, and holds dual citizenship.
He is of South African descent. His father is a South African, and he is alleged to have received his South African passport in June.
This makes him eligible to play for Bafana.
Van Duivenbooden is playing for Vitesse FC in the Dutch Eredivisie, a second-tier football league in the Netherlands.
He cut his football teeth in the youth ranks at Legmeervogels, Alphense Boys, Vitesse, and PSV Eindhoven, and later returned to Vitesse in May 2021 after he signed a professional contract.
Van Duivenbooden scored his first professional goal the following year against the Go Ahead Eagles, and Vitesse extended his contract until 2025.
Previously, there have been a number of South African players who grew up in Europe and caused a lot of noise when they were selected to play for Bafana.
The first group to receive criticism from SA football fans was Hans Vonk, Pierre Issa, Delron Buckley, and Marc Arnold.
They were roped into the squad ahead of the 1998 Fifa World Cup, and both Vonk and Issa became part of the final team that travelled to France for the football spectacle.
23-men squad to be announced soon
In recent times, Lars Veldwijk, who was also born in the Netherlands, was another journeyman to have made it to Bafana via the back door.
Veldwijk spent his formative years in the Dutch youth system at the club level and was eligible to represent South Africa through his paternal lineage.
He received his maiden call for the nation’s 2018 World Cup qualifier against Senegal in October 2016 before debuting in a 1-1 friendly tie with Mozambique the following month.
After a spell away from the team, he returned to the national fold to feature in his first international tournament in 2019, making five substitute appearances as South Africa reached the quarterfinals of the 2019 Afcon in Egypt.
In the few matches that he played for South Africa, he never broke his duck when it came to scoring.
Broos will trim his squad to 23 players who will play in the Afcon qualifiers.
