AmaZulu coach Benni McCarthy has opened up on Siyanda Xulu training with the club and made a plea to Sandile Zungu to sign the free agent.
The Bafana Bafana centre-back has left his Israeli club Hapoel Tel Aviv after an alleged fallout with the head coach and is club less since.
Xulu started training with Usuthu this week in order to stay fit and prepare himself for the upcoming Bafana Bafana friendlies against Guinea and France.
McCarthy confirmed on Thursday that Xulu approached him about training with the club and praised him for lifting the training to another level.
“I think he’s a breath of fresh air, he brings a lot of experience,” McCarthy said on Thursday.
“He asked myself and the technical team if it was possible for him to come and train and keep himself [fit] because of the situation what happened in Isreal.
“Now he’s free, so he doesn’t have a team, so we said yeah, he’s more than welcome because we know our standard of training and the level of training what he’s used to when he’s abroad…
“His leadership qualities that he portrays, you know a player, when you have it you have it, when you’re classy you’re class and he’s one of those players.
“I can definitely see that it’s rubbing off on my team because you watch players now, everyone is starting to talk because you see Siyanda Xulu, who is not even an AmaZulu player, just having that natural leadership quality, talking, dictating, telling players to come short, do this, do that.
“And Shoesy [Mbongeni Gumede], who usually gives 150% for himself also starts talking [to other players] and that is because we have Siyanda there. And that’s what you want, you want a good influential player and rub of on other players in the right way because you want people like Shoesy to lead and talk because you lead by example.
“Some people are more suited to be leaders, like if you have it within you can talk and tell players ‘hey, listen, just shift a bit, come a bit closer, do this’ and that’s what Siyanda is doing. The likes of Shoesy, Makhaula, Buchanan are also starting because now all of a sudden you have one player who’s talking and moving the orchestra so everyone else also wants to move the orchestra.”
But more than just adding quality and leadership to the training, McCarthy also revealed that he would love to make the 30-year-old part of his team.
“For me it’s super positive and I hope that maybe the club has it within us that we can make him an addition to the squad because what a player to add to the squad,” he added.
“We can still qualify for the CAF [knockout stages] and we’ve got seven games to save our season to get into the top four, if we have that kind of inspiration.
“He’s not a bad addition to the team, so president, Mr Zungu, watch him please.”
