Olwethu Makhanya's Fresh Start Under Mosimane

Olwethu Makhanya doesn’t hide how tough the Hugo Broos era felt from his side of the touchline.

Now a rising defensive force at Rangers and widely viewed as one of South Africa’s brightest exports, he still spent most of the recent FIFA World Cup in June watching from the bench. For a player on his trajectory, that cut deep.

With Pitso Mosimane now in charge of Bafana Bafana, Makhanya has made it clear he sees the change as a reset.

"I saw the coaching change as an opportunity for a fresh start in the national team because I always felt like I was overlooked by the previous coach," he told SABC Sport.

That sense of being sidelined sat alongside a broader frustration: Broos’ public scepticism about Major League Soccer, the league that shaped a key stretch of Makhanya’s development. The Belgian questioned the standard of the American top flight. Makhanya never bought into that view.

To him, the criticism didn’t just miss the mark. It ignored reality.

"I never understood the criticism because all these people probably never actually watched the MLS. People that really watch that league will tell you that it's high level football," he said.

He’s lived it, so he put his own experience on the table. Asked to stack up the competitions he knows best, Makhanya didn’t hesitate.

"Honestly, if I were to rank them, I'll put the Scottish Premiership first, second is the MLS, and the Betway Premiership is third."

That’s the hierarchy in his mind: Scotland on top, MLS right behind, home still in the picture. The question now is whether Mosimane’s new Bafana chapter finally matches the level Makhanya believes he’s already playing at.