Nkota: From bicycle injury to star

MOHAU Nkota survived a trauma that could have stopped him from living his dream — which is why he remains mindful of everything that has happened in the past few months.

- MIHLALI BALEKA.

Nkota has been the talk of the town recently, after making his full-season debut te Orlando Pirates, where he starred on the flank, running tirelessly like a man possessed.

He further hogged the headlines when he moved to Saudi Arabian outfit Al-Ettifaq during preseason, while continuing to feature regularly for Bafana Bafana, who are on the cusp of qualifying for the 2026 Fifa World Cup after beating Lesotho 3-0 on Friday night in Bloemfontein — a match in which he opened the scoring.

But all of that nearly never happened. Back in his junior days, Nkota injured his hand while on a joyride, and his mother decided that was the end of his football career — instructing him to quit the sport altogether.

“There was a time when I was in Grade 7. I fell from a bicycle and almost broke my hand. You can still see how it looks now,’ Nkota revealed, in the lobby of the Southern Sun International Hotel in Bloemfontein.

“I went to the hospital, and my mum got me an ice cream, and then from there, she told me to leave football. So, I stopped football for six months. She told me to quit because she thought I got hurt while playing. When I tried to explain what happened, she didn’t want to hear it.