Golden Arrows coach Clinton Larsen says it augurs well for a small club like Abafana Bes’thende that their striker Knox Mutizwa won the Absa Premiership Goal of the Month award of August.
Mutizwa, who is in his third season with Arrows following his arrival from Bidvest Wits, earned the prize for scoring with a sensational bicycle kick in the first game of the season against Maritzburg United at Harry Gwala Stadium.
The Zimbabwean’s teammate Siphelele Magubane won the same accolade last season in November 2017 when he curled a shot past Polokwane City goalkeeper George Chigova at Old Peter Mokaba Stadium.
Larsen, who has twice won the PSL Coach of the Month gong, is pleased to see his players getting recognition.
“For me it means we work hard. I’ll sound like a scratched record when I say we have limited resources and you guys know it, but we keep punching above our weight, or we keep trying to punch above our weight,” he said.
“It’s never easy. And now you can see, when you look at the bench, some of the players you might not even know them because we have been hit by injuries for some key players.
“But we keep persevering, the same with the players. We’ve got not one player playing for Bafana in our entire squad, but that doesn’t stop us from competing.
“We are a hard-working team, a small team. We know our identity, we don’t pretend to be anybody else and I think that type of attitude and work ethic will always make us competitive.
“Credit to the club. Four seasons ago the club was promoted from the NFD and we have been very stable since then. It was ninth position (in 2015/16), followed by eighth (in 2016/17), followed by seventh which become eighth.
“So there is stability at the moment in the club. There was a short period last season where we looked over our shoulders, in the bottom five, six in the league, but we came out of that. Once again we are coming good towards the end of the first round and hopefully we’ll continue for the remainder of the league. Because it is important for us to be a stable top-eight team.”
Larsen reckons Mutizwa has a chance to emulate Magubane and win the PSL Goal of the Season with his stunning strike.
“I’m sure he’ll be in the running for it,” he said.
“Like I said, when Cristiano Ronaldo did it (against Juventus in the Uefa Champions League semi-finals last season) everybody said ‘wow’. When Gareth Bale did it (in the Uefa Champions League final against Liverpool) everybody said ‘wow’. Let’s say ‘wow’ to when Mutizwa does it too from a small team like Golden Arrows.
“So, I’m sure come the end of the season he’ll be in the mix for that award.” — kickoff.com
