25 year-old Lorch, who plays for the Orlando Pirates soccer club, put South Africa on the international centre stage over the weekend as he earned Bafana Bafana 1-0 win over Egypt in the Africa Cup of Nations (Afcon). Police spokesperson in the province, Phumelele Dlamini told OFM news that on Tuesday morning, the Ficksburg police cluster, together with members of the community congratulated Mokoena on his son’s budding soccer career success as well as the goal he scored over the weekend. 

Mokoena, who spoke to OFM News’ Pulane Choane, says the goal by Lorch, who is his first born child, comforted him as he had earlier that day just buried his youngest brother, Lebohang Mokoena, who is also said to be Lorch’s closest uncle.

Mokoena says the goals scored by his son came as no surprise as he had earlier on Saturday at his youngest brother’s funeral predicted that his son would score an important goal for the country. The father says he based his prediction on his son’s character and knew that instead of letting the grief of losing his uncle get to him, Lorch would instead play a good game as a tribute to his uncle Lebohang Mokoena, who had died the week before in a car accident.

Known to many on the field as “Nyoso”, the 25-year old’s father says he thinks the now respected Pirates player started playing soccer at the tender age of 7 years old. “I say this because I remember buying him his first pair of soccer boots when he was seven years old,” Mokoena says. 

As some years passed by, Mokoena says his son, who at the time attended  school at the Marallaneng Secondary School in Ficksburg, played for his father’s team, which at the time was known as Castle League FC where he was then spotted by teams such as Maluti FET College FC, following which he then went to attend school at the college. “After Maluti FC, he went on to be spotted by Pirates and after many prominent and big-name clubs made him their various offers, he decided to go with Pirates, which is where he is now,” Mokoena said.

Lorch made international headlines and was a hit on social media following the goal he scored in the 85th minute during Saturday’s game after an intense match with the Egyptian team. As a result of that goal, Lorch kicked the Egyptians, who were also the game hosts, out of the tournament. Lorch, who holds the current title as the Premier Soccer League (PSL)’s Player of the Season and Footballer of the Season was on Saturday named as the man of the match following his goal, which made South Africans proud. 

Bafana Bafana will now on Wednesday evening go on to play against Nigeria's Super Eagles in Cairo, Egypt in the quarterfinals of the AFCON tournament. 

OFM News