The last couple of days have been the best of his career as he made a return to the South African national team and won his first major honour at national team level when he helped Bafana Bafana defeat Zambia in the final of the COSAFA cup last Wednesday.

On Sunday, he once again left his mark on South African football when he was voted man of the match by the media in attendance at The Amakhosi’s Telkom Cup quarterfinal battle with SuperSport United in Tshwane, as he played a starring role in Gold and Black as Chiefs go into the semifinal of this competition for the first time since the 2004 – 2005 season.

Not known for his instinctiveness in front of goal, Tshabalala demonstrated a different side of his game on Sunday as he was a real thorn in side of the SuperSport ranks. He did what he knows all too well, and that is sending in telling balls from the left into the dangerous areas.

In addition he managed to have two cracks at goal and, the first of which came on twenty-one minutes, was a sweet left footed curler which gave the SuperSport keeper some difficulty in handling. When he was in front of Onyango for a second time on Sunday, the SuperSport keeper stood no chance as Tshabalala picked up a Kaizer Junior pass and belted the ball home from close range, giving Onyango no chance in stopping the ball.

Deserved honour

There was no doubt in anyone's mind at the Vodacom Loftus Stadium that Siphiwe deserved his man of the match award, and speaking to kaizerchiefs.com after the game, Tshabalala said: “I will take this R 5000 worth of equipment and drop it off at my old school in Soweto. Just like me, there are many other players there who will be able to use the equipment to help them continue enjoying playing this wonderful game.”

On the game itself Tshabalala added “We expected it to be a hard and physical game. SuperSport always plays that way and we did not think that for one moment we could take our foot off the pedal. We won because we fought hard through the ninety minutes and even when we took the lead we did not let up and kept going at them.”

First goal

His strike against SuperSport was his first for The Amakhosi, but Siphiwe says that somehow he knew he would get his name on the score sheet on Sunday.

“In the change room before the game I told a couple of guys that I would score in the game. I just had this feeling inside of me that today was going to be my lucky day. When all of the my crosses went in as planned I knew this was it and I kept in on growing in confidence through the game. When the ball fell for me in the right spot, I guess there was nothing else for me to do but score and it took a team effort to win and the guys deserved the victory.”