Banyana’s Brilliant Basque (Foreign Kicks: Thembi Kgatlana)

The only South African to have scored at a World Cup was taking the Spanish top flight by storm at SD Eibar, having moved from Benfica when the pandemic cut short a lucrative contract there. She ranks neither that World Cup goal nor her 2018 African Women’s Footballer of the Year award as her most memorable achievement, and the answer she gives instead is about how she started: at six or seven, playing with boys who wanted her out but could not push her out, needing only a ball and two bricks for goalposts. She talks about being far from the big cities in the Basque Country and rather liking it, about Vera Pauw’s encouragement at Houston Dash, and about the foundation she has set up in South Africa.