Why should you care about a football award?
Because this is not just about a trophy. When Teboho Mokoena steps into contention for the PSL Footballer of the Season award, he is chasing something that only a handful of players in South African football history have ever achieved — winning it more than once. For a generation of young Kenyans and Africans who watch the PSL and understand what it means to grind in a system that rarely rewards loyalty, Mokoena’s story hits different. This is about proving that consistency beats flash, and that the quiet engine of a team deserves recognition just as much as the goal-hungry winger everyone is talking about.
Mokoena has been officially nominated alongside Orlando Pirates’ Relebohile Mofokeng and Oswin Appollis for the coveted Footballer of the Season award for the 2024/25 campaign. The Pirates pair arrive with serious momentum — their club won a treble, and both players posted impressive individual goal contributions throughout the season. On paper, they look like favourites. But this award is voted for by PSL coaches, not fans, and coaches tend to value something different: reliability, leadership, and the ability to hold a team together when the pressure is at its highest.
What exactly did Mokoena do this season?
He was Mamelodi Sundowns’ heartbeat — again. Across 41 appearances in the 2024/25 season, Mokoena scored seven goals as the Brazilians finished runners-up in the Betway Premiership while lifting the CAF Champions League. That last part matters enormously. Winning Africa’s biggest club competition is not a footnote — it is a statement, and Mokoena was central to it. Seven goals from a central midfielder across 41 games, combined with the defensive discipline and creative vision that defines his game, is not a quiet season. That is a complete season.
Sundowns did not win the domestic league, and that absence from the top of the Premiership table will be used against Mokoena by critics. But reducing his value to a league table position ignores the full picture. The CAF Champions League demands a different level of tactical maturity, and Mokoena delivered it on the continental stage while keeping Sundowns competitive at home. Coaches who vote on this award understand that nuance better than anyone.
How rare is winning this award twice?
Genuinely rare. The PSL Footballer of the Season award was introduced in 2008, and the first player to win it twice back-to-back was Teko Modise, who claimed the honour in both 2007/08 and 2008/09. That achievement cemented Modise’s legacy as one of the defining players of his era. Since then, the award has rotated widely, reflecting just how difficult it is to sustain the kind of individual excellence that coaches across the entire league are willing to recognise collectively.
Mokoena already won the award in the 2022/23 campaign, a season in which the Players’ Player of the Season went to Monnapule Saleng — meaning even his peers acknowledged that the competition for individual honours was fierce. He could not win it consecutively because his Sundowns teammate Ronwen Williams claimed the 2023/24 award, becoming the first goalkeeper to win it since Itumeleng Khune took the honour in 2012/13. The most recent winner before Mokoena’s current nomination was Lucas Ribeiro Costa, who won it in 2024/25 before abruptly terminating his contract with Sundowns — removing himself entirely from the picture.
So what stands between Mokoena and history?
Mofokeng and Appollis are not just names on a list — they represent a Pirates side that dominated domestic football and captured the imagination of South African fans this season. Their treble-winning campaign gives every voter a compelling reason to look their way. The narrative writes itself: young, electric, goal-scoring wingers from a team that won everything in sight. That is a powerful argument, and Mokoena’s camp cannot afford to dismiss it.
But here is the counter-argument, and it is a strong one. Coaches do not vote for the most entertaining player. They vote for the player they would most want in their own squad — the one who makes a team function, who shows up in 41 games without dropping below a certain standard, who wins trophies on the biggest stage the continent offers. Mokoena fits that description precisely. The PSL coaches have recognised him before, and the body of work he has produced since that first award has only grown more impressive.
What does this moment actually mean?
It means Mokoena is at a crossroads of legacy. Win this award, and he joins Teko Modise in a bracket that only the truly elite occupy. He becomes the kind of player whose name gets invoked when future generations argue about who defined an era of South African football. Lose it to Mofokeng or Appollis, and the narrative shifts — the narrative that says Sundowns players, no matter how good, will always be overshadowed by the collective when their team does not dominate domestically. That is the story Mokoena has the power to rewrite.
African football deserves its flowers. Mokoena has been giving everything to the game — season after season, competition after competition, without the fanfare that follows a hat-trick merchant or a highlight-reel dribbler. The PSL coaches know what he is worth. The question is whether they will say so loudly enough, when the votes are counted and history is either made or deferred.
