Former Mamelodi Sundowns midfielder Bennett Mnguni has explained how he was mistaken for a sheriff when he went to sign for Lokomotiv Moscow.
The South African caught the eye of the Russian club after good performances in the Caf Champions League with Sundowns and with Bafana Bafana in 2002.
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When he arrived in Moscow ready to sign for the club, he was clad in a Zion Christian Church (ZCC) hat and thus was mistaken for a sheriff.
Apart from the incident at the airport, the retired midfielder revealed other challenges he faced at Lokomotiv Moscow before he left.
“I landed with my bags, and I’m the only black at the airport. There was no one to ask for two to three hours. They looked for someone who could speak English. This was after hours,” Mnguni told FARPost
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“They thought I was a sheriff because I was wearing my ZCC hat. It was freezing; I started panicking, thinking I was in the wrong country.
“If it were someone else, they would have come back home after two weeks.
Each time I went out of the field, I couldn’t feel my toes because it was freezing. I’d wrap my feet in a towel and wait for them to warm up.
“One of my teammates then gave me this thing that warmed my feet and told me not to tell anyone. This was after two months. So, all along, my teammates were sabotaging me. I felt relieved. I could now enjoy sessions.
“I spent two seasons at Lokomotiv, the guy I was competing with was the captain of Russia, and they couldn’t bench him. I moved to Rostov. I was with Matthew Booth and Esau Kanyenda.”
After leaving Lokomotiv Moscow in 2003, he joined another Russian club, Rostov, and played for them until 2005.
Tianjin Tenda of China, AmaZulu, Thanda Royal Zulu, and Myanmar’s Okktha United are the other clubs Mnguni turned out for in his career.
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He played in the World Cup finals held in Japan and South Korea in 2002 for the Cosafa nation, and was a member of the Bafana squad at Afcon in 2002 and 2004.
Since he retired in 2009, the Masanawana legend was once involved as an assistant coach for Palmeros in 2016 in the third tier.
Bennett Mnguni is yet to take up a managerial task in the upper tiers since then.
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