Patrick Phungwayo’s Nedbank Cup journey comes full circle against Mamelodi Sundowns at Loftus Versfeld

Patrick Phungwayo has not forgotten how the Nedbank Cup helped turn him into a household name in South African football.

And as he anticipated ‘leading’ Gomora United FC against Mamelodi Sundowns in the first round proper match of the country’s premier club knockout competition at Loftus Versfeld tonight, the retired left-back could not help but share his experiences with his players.

Phungwayo is assistant coach at the Motsepe Foundation Championship side from Alexandra and he will, alongside head coach Ashley Makhanya, be looking to see their club add their name to that coveted list of lower division clubs that have sent revered elite league outfits tumbling out of the competition.

The idea of seeing Gomora joining the likes of Baroka FC, Maluti FET, University of Pretoria and Milford FC excites the former Bidvest Wits and Orlando Pirates player but not as much as the opportunity for young players to establish themselves.

“I’ve said to the players ‘this is a stepping stone’. It is an opportunity for them to make a name for themselves. And I shared my own story with them.”

And what a story it is. Way back in 2010 a young Phungwayo (he was 22 then) played an influential role in Wits’ Nedbank Cup success, the left-back ending up with the Young Player of the Tournament award and his career taking flight thereafter as the mighty Buccaneers later came calling.

“When we went to the final in 2010 with Wits and won it, we were young boys and for me that’s where my football story started. And that’s what I’ve been telling the boys (at Gomora) from when we started playing in the preliminaries. I’ve told them there’s no bigger stage than this for young players to show what they are made of," Phungwayo said.

"Back in 2010, I was only in my second season in the professional ranks and the final against AmaZulu was such a special occasion because it was the opening of the new FNB Stadium ahead of the FIFA World Cup. More special was the fact that we won the trophy for Wits after they’d not won anything for a very long time. We brought the glory days back to Wits. We awoke sleeping giants,” he chuckles.

Personally, he got validation that he’d made the right career choice. “I won the young player of the tournament. That’s why I was telling our players that this is the competition that convinced me that I could compete at the highest level. It confirmed to me that this is the career for me.”

Of course, Phungwayo knows that facing Sundowns is going to be a tough undertaking, especially now that the Betway Premiership champions are going through a rough patch that has seen them struggling in the CAF Champions League.

“It is not going to be an easy game against Sundowns, one of the biggest teams in Africa," Phungwayo said. "And now that the pressure is mounting on the team given their poor results, it means we are going to have it hard. But we’ve been playing friendlies against them, we have a relationship of playing during FIFA breaks and we played them in December.

"So while for most of our young players this is going to be the biggest game of their lives, the fact that they’ve faced these quality guys before – although not in as competitive a match as this one – will help ease their nerves somewhat. As a club we love challenging ourselves and whenever we get a chance to play against the big teams we do and our boys are particularly used to playing Sundowns.”

He derives confidence from some past results of the competition. “We know the history of small teams doing well in this tournament. Who can ever forget what Baroka did to the likes of (Kaizer) Chiefs and (Moroka) Swallows in this same tournament when they were in the lower division?

“I played against Sundowns a lot as a player and I know that the nerves are much higher whenever you play against the country’s big three. I’ve told the boys about it and said to them if you don’t get goose bumps for such matches, if you are just normal on match day and not going through some form of a trance then you don’t understand what you are playing.”

He will not be on the pitch tonight, but you can bet Phungwayo is going to live every minute of Gomora’s big moment in the limelight, cajoling and willing his team into a performance that could well change the trajectory of their careers for the better – just like this magical cup competition did for him 16 years ago.