Chicco speaks about past

MASERU – TEFO ‘Chicco’ Maipato, Dlhomo Monaphathi and Motlalepula Mofolo are among a few footballers who have had the opportunity to have their football nurtured outside the country.

Maipato spent a long spell of his career donning the black and white jersey of Orlando Pirates in South Africa.

His move to Pirates came after Maipato caught the eye of scouts following impressive performances while representing the country in the junior ranks and, of course, his former team, Likhopo.

From a young age, Maipato amazed many football supporters with his dazzling skills with the ball.

Born at Sea Point in Maseru, his talent blossomed on the dusty pitch of Pitso Ground where he played for Matlama’s junior team.

Despite the ground being studded with gravel stones, Maipato and his friends had to play barefooted because of their poor background.

But it was worth it as Maipato enjoyed a fruitful career as a player that even earned him a move outside Lesotho.

Maipato says the highlight of his career was playing for the Orlando Pirates junior teams where he spent eight years although he never managed to break through to the first team.

Maipato also excelled at school and he featured in the school’s first team for Sefika High School irrespective of being in the junior classes.

Growing up, the midfield maestro was known for his quality passing as well as being a free-kick and corner-kick specialist.

Besides street football, he initially began playing soccer at Pitso Ground as a player for Matlama’s junior teams before he could move on to play for Likhopo under the late Bishop Molatoli.

With Likhopo he won promotion to the Premier League in 2002.

In 2003 he went to play for Orlando Pirates Under-17 junior’s team and within three months he was nominated as the team captain due to his good performances and commitment.

Maipato also had a stint at Bantu FC in 2010 then Matlama in 2013 and later Likhopo in 2016.

He was coached by Tebogo Moloi and Simphiwe Ngwenya at the Pirates Under-17 team.

They soon identified his quality and made him captain within a few months in the team.

He was also promoted to the Under-19 team in a short space of time where he won the player of the season trophy.

He ultimately got promoted to Pirates reserve side team where they won the Vodacom league twice.

One of the memorable moments as a player that still lingers in his mind is a free-kick goal he once scored against Itumeleng Khune affectionately known as Mzansi’s no.1 to football fanatics.

“My greatest moment in football was scoring a winning goal against Mzansi’s finest goalkeeper Khune at the Rand Stadium while he was still in the Chiefs junior team,” he says.

“What added cherry on top of the cake on that day was that the goal went all the way to make us lift the trophy.”

Maipato has a number of caps for the national team, Likuena.

He began playing for the country at the Under-14 level and progressed all the way up to the senior national team.

To date he can’t even recall how many times he represented the country but he did so on many occasions and at different levels.

He can be remembered as part of the Under-20 national team which once made history by nearly qualifying for the U20 World Cup when it finished fourth at the 2004 Caf African Youth Championship

It was coached by the late Seephephe ‘Mochini’ Matete and Lehlohonolo Thotanyana.

That was arguably the biggest achievement that Lesotho football fraternity in the country has so far witnessed at continental level.

With that effort, Makoanyane XI were expected to translate their success to the senior national team, however, due to what Maipato describes as a lack of consistency and progression, Lesotho’s hopes were dashed as the squad was dismantled.

Maipato stresses that the failure of Lesotho teams to qualify for major tournaments is due to failure by the administrative body, the Lesotho Football Association (LEFA).

He says the root cause is that LEFA has superficially invested in the country’s development structures.

He says the country’s grassroots football initiatives are unauthentic as they are short-term.

He proposes the need to have national leagues from as early as Under-12.

“We are not serious enough with our football,” he says.

“We don’t have long-term plans for the future of our football. That’s the problem. Last but not least, we don’t have the right criteria to choose coaches for our national teams.”

He says it is high time that LEFA recruits retired players who have plied their trade abroad into development structures so that they can plough their experiences back into the upcoming young stars because they already know what it takes to play at the international level.

Having played outside the borders of Lesotho, Maipato says some of the challenges that players encounter in foreign lands is the language barrier as well as culture.

He, however, ruled out that the former has a major influence as football language is universal — a player can still perform according to the recommendations of the coach or fellow players because gestures are also used to supplement the spoken language.

In order to make it as a player abroad, as Maipato sees it, it requires a player to be a workaholic.

He says players need to work extra hard by going the extra mile in training to enhance their talent and skills.

He says they also need to be ethical and not be easily led astray by local players.

Maipato has been coaching a local team called Ace Maseru for the past four years.

He has cried foul that as former national team players they are not given courtesy treatment by LEFA like other soccer bodies do for their counterparts in other countries.

He feels LEFA needs to give them an exemption as retired soccer players when they enrol in coaching courses by at least allowing them to start at an upper coaching level instead of basic level.

“What LEFA is doing to us isn’t fair because we are not blank when it comes to soccer so we don’t have to start soccer coaching courses from scratch, D-licence, like other people who have not played the game at the highest level,” he said.

Some of Maipato’s funny moments in football which he can share with soccer supporters is when he was on national duty in South Africa.

“We were playing a game against Zambia in Durban. As the match was about to begin, the Zambian team presented the referee with plain white soccer balls for the game. I said no, we can’t play with a soccer ball not written ‘FIFA approved on it’, I then presented ours with that tag on it.

“The game officials didn’t buy into my story and proceeded to use the Zambian balls,” he said.

As if that was not enough, one of the Zambian players went to Lesotho’s players while they were warming-up, he went cross-cutting them and splashing them with water.

The irony was that his fellow team mates just stood there lame and not fighting off the dude.

The game began and Lesotho secured an early goal scored through Chicco but it was ruled off by the linesman as he construed his chest trap as a handball.

Thereafter Zambia began scoring one goal after the other and Lesotho lost by a big margin, 5-0.

Calvin Motekase