Although the 2021\/22 Premier Soccer League (PSL) season had been on a hiatus for most of January and the first week of February because of the 2021 Africa Cup of Nations (Afcon), the league has already passed its halfway mark with teams having played more than 15 of their 30 matches. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
With the second half of the season having officially resumed, local football lovers look forward to the next player who will reach or exceed the 20-goal mark.<\/p>\n\n\n\n!function(){“use strict”;window.addEventListener(“message”,(function(e){if(void 0!==e.data[“datawrapper-height”]){var t=document.querySelectorAll(“iframe”);for(var a in e.data[“datawrapper-height”])for(var r=0;r<t.length;r++){if(t[r].contentWindow===e.source)t[r].style.height=e.data["datawrapper-height"][a]+"px"}}}))}();\n\n\n\n\n
Retired footballer and current AmaZulu assistant coach Siyabonga Nomvethe, the league\u2019s highest all-time goal scorer with 123 goals in total, was the last player to score 20 league goals in a single season. That was 10 years ago in 2011\/12. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Since then, the goals from the PSL\u2019s leading goal scorers have been well below that in each season, with four players sharing second place with 16 goals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Several football coaches, both local and foreign<\/a>, have lamented that a lack of goal-scoring ability is one of the challenges facing South African football, which possibly translates at national level as well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As football is fundamentally about scoring goals, the inconsistencies of South African and South Africa-based players upfront have meant that the country often falls short when benchmarked against its counterparts globally. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Only two PSL teams \u2013 Orlando Pirates in 1995 and Mamelodi Sundowns in 2016 \u2013 have won the CAF Champions League, an annual continental club football competition, which is run by the Confederation of African Football. This is despite the PSL being considered one of the best leagues in Africa. Much of this can be attributed to a lack of goal scoring prowess. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Ever since Nomvethe\u2019s 20-goal feat while playing for Moroka Swallows, only four players have surpassed the 15-goal mark. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Moroka Swallows also happens to be the club with the most top goal-scorer award winners (also known as the Lesley Manyathela Golden Boot<\/a>) in the past 10 years, with two: Nomvethe and Katlego Mashego in 2012\/13. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The lowest-scoring season was 2013\/14 with Kaizer Chiefs forward Bernard Parker scooping the Lesley Manyathela Golden Boot with just 10 goals. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Since then, Black Leopards\u2019 Mwape Musonda (2018\/19), Orlando Pirates\u2019 Gabadinho Mhango, Highlands Park\u2019s Peter Shalulie (2019\/20) and Supersport United\u2019s Bradley Grobler (2020\/21) have done better \u2013 scoring 16 goals each.<\/p>\n\n\n\n While it seems like the challenge mainly lies with the strikers, former Bafana Bafana striker and retired footballer Daniel Mudau, told Goal<\/em> in 2018 that there aren\u2019t many out-and-out strikers in the league, as a lot of midfielders have been converted to be strikers<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n During his career, Mudau netted 110 goals for Mamelodi Sundowns<\/a>, while his overall tally sits at 170 goals.<\/p>\n\n\n\nViews from the professionals\u00a0<\/h2>\n\n\n\n