LUTHER'S LAST STAND

THERE HAVE BEEN SEVERAL SOUTH AFRICANS WHO HAVE BOMBED ABROAD IN RECENT YEARS, BUT FEW HAVE BEEN AS DISAPPOINTING AS LUTHER SINGH CAN HE RESURRECT HIS CAREER? 

- Nick Said

In 2015 there emerged a bright new star in South African football when Luther Singh, then barely 18 years old, burst on to the scene at Swedish second-tier side GAIS and had Europe talking.

He was earmarked as a future star not just of South African football, but potentially also the global game, but nine years on and he is involved in his most recent attempt to resurrect his career at Serbian outfit Čukarički.

For a player who once had the eyes of top European clubs on him, it has been a torrid journey to this point, some of his own making, and he has not got close to fulfilling his enormous potential.

Perhaps there is still time, though he will be 27 in August and already at that age where if it hasn't happened by now, it is typically unlikely to do so.

He is not the only South African to crash and burn, but he has to be up there with the most disappointing as on raw ability alone, he was head and shoulders above his peers in the country.

After leaving GAIS in 2016 he was watched by the likes of Real Madrid, but perhaps took the sensible move to join Sporting Braga in Portugal - a club and a league very well suited to developing the then 19-year-old further.

Things stalled for him, though, and after a series of injuries, weight issues and loans in Portugal, an ill-fated move to top Danish side FC Copenhagen saw him barely play for two seasons before moving to Čukarički this campaign.

Singh won the most recent of his 13 Bafana Bafana caps over two years ago and has not had a look-in since, as he explains his rise as a youngster.