EXCLUSIVE: Vonk looks back at his time with Bafana

How did it come about that you became a Bafana player? “It’s a long story, it was about a half year before the 1998 World Cup in France and South Africa had qualified. It was around December 1997 and I think they were searching around the world for players with a South African background and I was one of them. We were about 4 guys, the other two were based in Germany, we were invited to come over to South Africa and we met the people from SAFA and off we went on a camp to Zurich and they tested us to be good enough and I was asked if I wanted to play for Bafana Bafana and I accepted.

It must have been strange for you to suddenly consider yourself a South African? “It was very strange off-course, because if you live most of your life in Holland and suddenly you play for your country of your birth that you don’t know much about. After a while I learnt more about the country, the cultures and the people and I started to really enjoy every moment with the national team and being a South African.”

After playing well in ’98 world cup, were you gutted not to play at the 2002 world cup? “I was disappointed yes, but with me there were about another 10 players that didn’t play. When you go with a squad of 23 to a world and only 11 can play, it’s always to be a big battle to get into the team. I was disappointed because I expected to play, but at that time the coach decided to play Andre; I can moan about it but I can’t change it. I was hoping to at least get some time to play, but it didn’t work out.”

How was the feeling going into the stadium and playing in France ’98? “The world cup was just a fantastic experience. We didn’t do that badly, we lost 3-0 to France, no chance, but then we drew against Denmark and we had a chance against Saudi Arabia but we drew. We could have won that match but at that time I felt the spirit in the team was lost and there was no real commitment anymore to do well and ha we won we could have progressed to the second round.”

Do you think the current Bafana team is better than the World Cup ’98 team? “Not at all, our think our team from ’98 was much better. At that time we had Lucas Radebe, Mark Fish, Shoes Moshoueu, Quinton Fortune, upfront a young and willing Benni McCarthy, Shaun Bartlett on top of his form, Helman Mkhalele, at left back we had David Nyathi was just fantastic what a player that was. No way this team is not as good, they have quality players like Benni still and Steven Pienaar, one or two maybe, but not as many as we had in 1998; having said that, it’s not something to worry about because if we can have a team that can perform as a unit we can still do well. But don’t tell me this team is better that our team, that’s not true.”