After a difficult start to the 2025-26 season, South Africa midfielder Relebohile Mofokeng has bounced back and is in the form of his life for Orlando Pirates, just in time for the FIFA World Cup.
The numbers tell a story: Six goals and three assists in his last seven Premiership games, taking his tally for the season to 10 goals and eight assists in 25 league appearances this season despite a nightmare start off the back of injury and a loss of confidence.
In October last year - the month in which Mofokeng turned 21 and Bafana Bafana qualified for the World Cup, national team head coach Hugo Broos attributed Mofokeng's struggles at the time to constant speculation over his future.
"Why is Rele not at the level he was last year? It's very clear, they made him crazy," said Broos.
"You can't ask a guy at the age of 20, that he can say yes I'm concentrating on football not what those guys are telling me, I'm not listening. At the end, you listen, and this is normal, you can't blame Mofokeng for that.
"Maybe it's my job to go to those guys and say pay attention to this and blah blah blah - but that's all I can do."
Mofokeng has made it back into Broos' team since then and is the favourite to start in the no.10 role that Broos and Pirates boss Abdeslam Ouaddou agree he is most suited to - rather than a position out wide.
The young star known in South Africa as 'President yama2k' (the leader of the generation born from 2000 onwards) appears to have displaced club teammate Sipho Mbule as Broos' preferred option in that role.
Broos is a major admirer of Mamelodi Sundowns captain Themba Zwane, but his struggles to maintain full fitness and a starting berth at 36 give Mofokeng the upper hand for Mexico, Canada and the USA.
But is Rele overrated in a Bafana jersey?
It is worth noting that even though Mofokeng has recovered his best form for Orlando Pirates, and even surpassed what he achieved in previous seasons, he has yet to reach his best form in a Bafana Bafana shirt since Broos brought him back into the fold ahead of the Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON).
Mofokeng has not been terrible in a Bafana shirt by any means, but certainly not quite himself. He has not been as clinical in recent national team games as he has been for Orlando Pirates. Watching him represent the national team has been a stark reminder that there is still a gap between him and the world's best players, which an overseas move could help bridge.
Ouaddou suggested as much when he said: "The talent he has: technicality - yes; the intelligence - he has this, but sometimes when you have such quality like that, sometimes you misuse these qualities.
"Our job is just to make him aware that there are some strategic areas on the pitch where he needs to limit his touches and to use his cleverness."
This came even as the Moroccan mentor, almost in the same breath, called Mofokeng "[the kind of player] you get every 10 or 15 years". Ouaddou's comments about Mofokeng in recent months -- both positive and constructively critical -- highlight the gap between where the youngster is and where he could be.
Should Mofokeng go overseas?
Mofokeng has gained interest from across the world. Monaco were recently reported to be leading the race to sign him. There was a serious offer from Minnesota United, as per ESPN sources, and there was even a point at which Barcelona were rumoured to be in the mix.
South African players have fairly often gone abroad in Mofokeng's lifetime, but rarely stayed consistent at a high level in Europe.
Andile Jali has been one of the country's better representatives abroad, spending four and a half years at KV Oostende in Belgium (2014-2018) in between stints at Orlando Pirates and Mamelodi Sundowns.
The recently retired midfielder has been one of the most vocal proponents of the view that Mofokeng still has much to prove. He told iDiski Times that "no-one will be cheering for him in Europe until he makes his own name there."
On the Arena Sports Show, Jali refused to compare Mofokeng with Zwane - whose lengthy career has been spent almost entirely at Mamelodi Sundowns.
"He hasn't even played for long and you are talking about him. Let him play at least 10 successive years then we can talk, not after one or two years," Jali said.
"He's young, so let him play and enjoy himself. Now the boy is not growing.
"At Pirates this season after the MTN8 he had a phase where he dropped and people were complaining. People claimed he was affected by [Mohau] Nkota's move [to Al-Ettifaq from Orlando Pirates] and all that.
"But it's not that part. He needs to fix himself first before people talk."
Nkota, it should be noted, has suffered a loss of form coupled with a family bereavement, from which he is also on the way towards bouncing back.
He had told ESPN that Mofokeng had helped him settle in the Orlando Pirates first team, and the scale of the challenge posed by an environment where there is nobody quite so familiar to him appears to be on display in the Saudi Pro League.
Mofokeng is a player of even greater technical ability than Nkota, but he has yet to prove that he can avoid the same dips in form when complications emerge. Indeed, his slump at the beginning of 2025-26 was a sign that Mofokeng is not immune to the challenges that have beset so many South African footballers.
Bafana stars' recent struggles abroad
There are teams across Europe that could so desperately use a player with Mofokeng's ability to find a way through defensive lines -- whether through dribbling wizardry, an incisive pass or even an unexpected side-footed shot from the edge of the box expertly placed into the top corner.
Take Scotland, for example - where the last Old Firm derby between Celtic and Rangers, a 0-0 Scottish Cup quarter-final draw in March decided by Celtic's penalty shootout win, could so easily have been decided either way by a moment of magic from a player like Mofokeng.
Then, however, one has to consider that this was a fixture which could so easily have had South Africans lining up on either side. Midfielder Bongani Zungu had a chance to secure a permanent move to Rangers from Amiens during a 2020-21 loan spell, but ultimately had to return to Ligue 2 after violating UK COVID-19 restrictions and failing to secure a transfer.
Rivaldo Coetzee can, of course, be excused for the failed medical which denied him a move to Celtic in 2017 as a result of an underlying issue with his right foot.
However, Zungu's story was not an unusual one for South African players abroad. Too often, players have been their own worst enemies during challenging times. In Zungu's case, a failed move to RCD Mallorca in 2019-20 had affected his love for the game.
For the likes of Zungu, Jali and so many others in years gone by, Nkota now, and potentially Mofokeng in the future, the difficult option is to stay and fight it out in a foreign country. Home comforts are afforded to South African footballers with far greater ease than their African counterparts, as there is serious money in the Betway Premiership.
Nkota, it should be noted, continues to fight for better days overseas and has recently even been linked with a possible move to Benfica.
Mbokazi setting the standard
Once Mofokeng goes abroad, he will have to, at some point, stay focused during a tough time. So far, the young South African player who has shown himself to be most capable of that is neither Mofokeng nor Nkota, but Chicago Fire FC centre-back Mbekezeli Mbokazi.
Mbokazi had his first team breakthrough at Orlando Pirates in March 2025 - by which time Mofokeng and Nkota had already established themselves in the side.
What has happened in the months since - from his rapid rise to the first team, to his move to MLS, to Hugo Broos' ill-judged comments about the move, to Mbokazi's subsequent outstanding performances at the Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON) - would not have been possible for most South African players.
Mbokazi himself remains media shy, at least in English, but strikingly confident on the pitch. Even during one of his relative off days in recent months in a 3-2 AFCON win over Zimbabwe, Mbokazi remained as vocal as ever and had the courage to attempt a marauding run out of defence even after an earlier mistake.
There is no reason to believe that fame has changed Mbokazi much, but it has exposed an almost superhuman grit within him that could have helped many South African players from generations past progress to heights far beyond what they managed.
If there are two young players in South Africa who have proven with their quality on the pitch that they are capable of being superstars, Mbokazi and Mofokeng would be most people's top two.
All that is left for Mofokeng is to prove that he can emulate Mbokazi in standing tall through the ups and downs that are sure to follow whatever happens in the year to come - with the FIFA World Cup a potential starting point for a rollercoaster ride.