Tefu's road to glory bumpy

Tefu Mashamaite's clean sweep of the PSL's footballer, players' player and defender of the season awards completes a remarkable turnaround from a centre back whose qualities as a Kaizer Chiefs player were once questioned.

Mashamaite had played in just 12 league games and lost form and confidence under Vladimir Vermezovic in 2011-2012. With the arrival of Mulomowandau Mathoho and Morgan Gould, he was transfer-listed but narrowly survived the chop.

The former Bidvest Wits defender was a much improved player as Chiefs won a league and Cup double under Stuart Baxter in 2012-2013.

Last season he became the ever-present in central defence, ahead of Mathoho and Gould. This campaign he became the PSL's footballer of the season.

"At the end 2012 we had finished under 'VV' [Vermezovic] with me, Thomas Sweswe and Dominic Isaacs as centre backs. I was on the transfer list, which luckily didn't happen for me," Mashamaite said.

"Then the team was transformed and we had Tower [Mathoho] and Morgan come in as the ideal centre-back pairing. But one thing I really worked on was impressing the new coach. He was fresh and wasn't going to be biased.

"And in the pre-season camp in Potchefstroom I really wanted to show him I deserved to be part of the team. We had a great season, and right now we are here talking.

"If you're going to listen to what people think about you then you lose a sense of what you think about yourself. "... And it's days like this when you say, 'They didn't give me a chance but here I am'."Baxter said he never saw anything in Mashamaite that made people question whether the defender was good enough for Amakhosi.

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