Bafana Bafana forward Mihlali Mayembela has shared how he nearly quit football because he was constantly compared to his brother and how that made him doubt his abilities.

Mayambela is the younger brother of Cape Town City youth coach Mark Mayambela. He is currently plying his trade abroad with Aris Limassol FC in Cyprus.

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The 26-year-old made his professional debut for All Stars back in 2014. He talked about how the start of his career was excruciating for him since people compared him to his older brother.

Mayambela senior had just made a name for himself in the South African football fraternity, and that almost made him stop playing.

“He has paved the way for me, I can say. It had a lot of positives and negatives along the way for me. I was being compared to him while I was very young. I felt like it was not fair and I doubted myself because of that,” Mayambela told SAFA’s Media manager Romy Titus.

WHY MIHLALI MAYAMBELA NEARLY QUIT FOOTBALL

“I suffered a lot, at some point I didn’t want to play anymore because I was tired of being compared to someone. Being not able to be my own man or being Mihlali, but I was Mark’s brother, and it was tiring,

Mayambela went on to say that when he and his brother played in different countries, things began to change a bit.

“When I had to move to Cape Town and he moved to Sweden. That is when I realised that I could play football because I had doubts and [I got] backlashes from people. I [finally] found myself and I started to enjoy football,”

“I became my own man, and I was no longer in his shadow. That is one of the reasons that made me want to play abroad because I didn’t want to do anything that made me be under his shadow. I wanted to do my own thing,” he added.

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He also explained that his brother played an impactive role that ended up strengthening their bond as brothers.

“He had a really big impact, and until this day he has had an impact on me. We are very close, and we speak almost every day about everything. Our relationship is amazing. It is what keeps me going because it’s not easy to have that type of a relationship, things happen especially in families,” he said.

By Sinolwetu Tompela