Sibanda goes for glory with Bloemfontein Celtic

LIMPOPO – When the lad from Tzaneen embarked on the great trek to the Free State, there was an overwhelming air of uncertainty as to whether the player from Limpopo would fit into the mould.
After a few months of hard labour at practice sessions, dedication and attention to detail at training, Nicholas Sibanda has settled in well in the green and white brigade.
He was signed by the Free State Absa Premiership campaigners ahead of the 2016/17 league season as a replacement for towering defender, Bevan Fransman. Celtic offered 22-year-old Sibanda a three-year contract and, according to the club’s media officer Sello Nduna, the young defender will surprise people.
“He plays centre-back as well as central midfield,” he says. The Mangaung giants’ enlistment of Sibanda increases the number of newly-recruited players to eight, with which the club is hoping to rekindle the ambition to challenge for trophies.
Sibanda started his sporting career at Hudson Ntsanwisi High School after cutting his football teeth at a tender age in the dusty streets of Dan village.
Now a professional player, he recalls how he started playing soccer at the age of eight, when one of his friends, Wisani Tommy Mandlazi, invited him to one of his training sessions.
“I played goalkeeper for almost two years until my coach told me he thinks I could make a great field player and I converted to left back,” Sibanda recalls. He continued playing for the club for almost seven years.
He then proceeded to Boabab Zero Fake FC, scooping the award for best young player for the season in 2011/12. At that time they gained promotion from the SAB league to the ABC Motsepe League, formerly known as the Vodacom League.
“My breakthrough was through school soccer, because at high school I represented both the school and my province, and that is where I was scouted by Mamelodi Sundowns.
“I became a provincial champion for ABC Motsepe league in the Free State, we failed at the first division playoffs, but I was lucky enough to be selected for the national u/23 squad that faced Egypt in an international friendly match. I now want to make the most of the opportunity of being a player for Celtic,” says Sibanda.
thoko@nmgroup.co.za