Mosotho soccer, Arsenal gained a reputation as a
hard, grafting team and were disliked amongst the
rest of the established soccer guard. Sutu was an
important part of the team, although not usually
the best or most physically gifted player on the
pitch, he was a student of the game and always
eager to learn, a trait he has yet to lose.
Sutu was part of the Arsenal team that ran
roughshod over Lesotho soccer and won the
Lesotho top flight in 1989, 1991 and 1993, and they
claimed the domestic cup twice in his career there.
With this success, came continental competition
in the African Cup of Champions (equivalent to
UEFA’s Champions League) and in the African
Cup Winners’ Cup (comparable to the secondary
UEFA Europa League). The 1993 Cup Winners’
Cup campaign would prove to be a turning point
for Sutu.
Coming from such a small and unproven soccer
playing nation, Arsenal had to win a qualifying
home and away series in order to join the
continents’ elite clubs in the competition proper.
Their first matchup was against Mozambique title
holders Clube de Gaza, in which Arsenal stole a
2-2 draw away from home and earned a 1-1 tie on
home soil to advance on goal differential, a massive
upset in the competition for an amateur team.
The result saw the Lesotho minnows drawn
against Egyptian giants Al-Ahly in the succeeding
round of 16, a gargantuan task. Arsenal were
staring down an impossible game, but went out
and still performed admirably, miraculously only
conceding a single goal at home, largely thanks to
what Sutu called one of his best performances as
a player. At that moment, Al-Ahly was looking for
a goalkeeper to backup club stalwart and national
goalkeeper Ahmed Shobeir, and after a yeoman’s
effort in the first leg, Al-Ahly took a closer look
at Sutu. during their reception for Arsenal in the
run-up to the decisive second leg, they gauged
his interest, something that took Sutu off guard.
“I didn’t know how to react (to) something that
had never happened before. I was thinking ‘Wow,
all the things that I had been dreaming about have
literally just happened right here, right now.’ ”
He didn’t give them a commitment in Egypt
that day, however, because he needed to speak
with his coach and family back home.
Sutu signed with the 39-time league champs
on June 23, 1993, realizing his childhood dream.
It was a big change for the young man from
South Africa going from playing in front of a few
thousand in his native land to training in front of
20,000 people and playing in front of attendances
that regularly pushed six digits, not to mention
adjusting to an entirely different culture and
language. The biggest club in all of Africa and the
Middle Eastern soccer world, Al-Ahly has no fewer
than 100 trophies in their cabinet from domestic
and continental competitions, and maintained
a high level of excellence in part thanks to their
manager, Englishman Allan Harris. Bringing his
experience as a player with more than 300 games
of experience in English football and also serving
as an assistant under Terry Venables at league-
winning Barcelona, Harris would influence Sutu’s
coaching acumen more than any other figure.
Although he never quite broke through to the
first team, Sutu did gain dozens of starts for the
Egyptian giants.
“WOW, ALL THE THINGS
THAT I HAD BEEN
DREAMING ABOUT
HAVE LITERALLY JUST
HAPPENED RIGHT
HERE, RIGHT NOW.”
Thabane Sutu
During this exciting time, Sutu captained the
Lesotho national team as well, racking up nearly
30 caps between 1994 and 1997. Where the most
senior player generally assumes the captaincy,
Sutu gained the armband in a more unexpected
way. In an Africa Cup of Nations qualifier 1994
against a Cameroon team fresh off a World Cup
showing in the United States, and after a long
flight from Cairo to Johannesburg, Sutu made his
way back to Lesotho to find the national players
in a dispute with the national association over
unpaid stipends. Despite Cameroon already
being in Lesotho, the game was at grave risk of
being called off, something that wasn’t unheard
of in the cobbled-together nature of soccer in
the region at the time. Not one to waste his long
journey home, Sutu brokered a deal between
the association and the players to split the gate
receipts, and as a result of his work between the
players and the association, he was handed the
captain’s armband, all of this before the match
even transpired. The game was a shock 2-0 win for
the hosts, a result that Sutu says was the proudest
of his four-year tenure between the posts for his
national team.
After a respectable excursion abroad, Thabane
decided to hang up his gloves in 1998 and return to
his roots at Arsenal to coach the nation’s top youth
prospects, something he knew he wanted to do
the duration of his career. The move meant he was
closer to his eventual wife, Motselisi, whom he met
the previous year. The daughter of a Presbyterian
ministry director, Motselisi found herself back and
forth between Lesotho and Louisville, Kentucky,
where her father studied. After several month of
coaching in 1998, and after long consideration,
Sutu left his position in the Basotho national setup
coaching youth prospects to move to the U.S. with
his soon-to-be wife and to study exercise science
at the University of Louisville, a move he would
reflect on as a great decision.
Despite leaving all of his accomplishments and
notoriety a continent behind, Sutu would return
to the coaching ranks soon enough. He joined
the Trinity High School coaching staff in 2000
after he was spotted playing pickup soccer one
day in Seneca park and played briefly for a local
team, the Cosmos. He moved on to local youth
team United 1996 FC the following year, after he
was brought on by Founder/Director Mohamed
Fazlagic, where Sutu still holds the position of
technical director.
Fast forward almost 15 years: Sutu was invited
to talk to the representatives of the newest USL-
Pro team, Louisville City FC, looking to start play
in 2015. GM Bjorn Bucholtz and Head Coach
James O’Connor were looking for a goalkeeping
coach. The initial talks were more informal, with
O’Connor and Sutu feeling out each other’s
coaching philosophy. Sutu was asked back for
a more formal interview along with a couple of
other goalkeeping coaches, and Sutu won the job.
He slotted into the coaching setup well, joining
Daniel Byrd as the third member of the staff,
satisfied with the established hierarchy.
In addition to being the goalkeeping coach
for Louisville City FC and technical director at
United 1996 FC, he also holds the position of co-
head coach at Louisville Collegiate High School.
What a winding path indeed.
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