Andre Arendse addresses looming SA goalkeeper crisis

Although Mamelodi Sundowns and Bafana Bafana captain Ronwen Williams is at his peak at 33, the only younger SA-born shot-stopper consistently playing at their club over the last two seasons is Sipho Chaine at Orlando Pirates.

Arendse sees this as a looming crisis – even at SuperSport, where Ricardo Goss and Thakasani Mbanjwa have shared the responsibility between the sticks. 

"I don't know if I've got to be careful how I say this, but I say it with all good intent – the problem we face at the moment is, and please somebody correct me if I'm wrong, that nine of our PSL clubs have foreign first-choice goalkeepers, for example," said Arendse.

"And that is no disrespect to foreign goalkeepers because I think they do add value to our game, but it is a problem for us as a local South Africa because we're not placing a serious enough focus on developing young goalkeepers coming through.

"Our youngest local goalkeeper playing in the PSL at the moment – I stand corrected – is maybe Sipho Chaine, and I think he's 28-29, it's not good enough. 

"Where are our 20-year-olds? Where are our 21-year-olds, who are playing first team football for their clubs? So that speaks to a proper lack of development from a goalkeeping perspective."

The 1996 AFCON winning former Bafana goalkeeper also reveals he is working alongside his SuperSport colleague and current Bafana goalkeeper coach Grant Johnson to address this predicament. 

"As goalkeeper coaches, and I've been in the goalkeeping game for many, many years, I'm working very closely at the moment with Grant Johnson, who is the current Bafana goalkeeper [coach]," he added.

"We've identified that the problem is not Grant and I going and coaching as many goalkeepers as we possibly can to try and correct that situation, but we have to start coaching as many goalkeeper coaches as we possibly can.

"[That way] they can go out and coach young goalkeepers and widen the pool for selection – we cannot just rely on Ronwen [Williams], Ricardo Goss, Veli Mothwa, Sage Stephens, who has come into the [Bafana] squad, and Sipho Chaine.

"We need the younger crop of goalkeepers coming in to mount a serious challenge for the next five, 10, 15, 20 years of international football, and that is a serious consideration we're currently working on."

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