Neal Collins
Lucas Radebe faces an uncertain future in the game that has been his life.
According to sources at Leeds United, the Soweto-reared centre-half might never be able to train properly again, such is the state of his creaking 32-year-old knees.
The Chief, Rhoo, Lucas, call him what you will, but life has been hard for Yorkshire’s South African hero lately. As hard as it can get when you’re getting paid 25000 a week to play football.
And that’s the problem.
He hasn’t played since March 31, two months before the end of last season, when the latest in a string of serious injuries put the former Kaizer Chiefs player, signed for just 250000 in 1993, back on to his sickbed after a Premiership clash with Sunderland.
Last winter, he suffered two separate concussions, an ankle injury and, with some finality, a knee ligament problem that required surgery.
Then he lost both the captaincy of South Africa to Shaun Bartlett and the leadership of his English club to record signing Rio Ferdinand, who arrived from West Ham for 18-million last season.
Suddenly he was injured and looking up at an array of centre-halves including Ferdinand, Jonathan Woodgate, Dominic Matteo and Michael Duberry.
At home in the quiet commuter town of Linton, in a posh road of 700000 houses where Mark Viduka is one of four footballing neighbours, Radebe has been struggling.
Two months ago, a visibly brighter Radebe said hopefully: “I’m nearly ready, the knee is feeling good. I am one game away from fitness.”
On September 4, he turned out for his second Leeds reserve game, against Manchester City at York … and the knee went again.
This week, when Ferdinand went down with a hamstring injury on the eve of the Uefa Cup tie against Troyes in France, it was Duberry, another injury-prone centre-half, who got the call. Radebe didn’t even make the flight.
Leeds spokesman David Walker told me on Wednesday: “He’s been out with a chronic knee injury; it’s a long-standing thing. We don’t know when he’ll be back, but it’ll be some time. It’s been tough on the lad.”
Even Charlton Athletic’s Bartlett is missing him. The man who would normally find himself shackled by his Bafana Bafana team-mate says: “Ironically, every time we have been due to face each other he has been out injured maybe he’s running scared or something!
“He’s probably among the best man-to-man markers in the Premiership, but unfortunately he has been plagued by injuries.
“When Lucas is on the top of his game, he is very difficult to get past.”
The word in Leeds is that Radebe, like former Liverpool great Alan Hansen or Manchester United and Aston Villa’s Irish star Paul McGrath, may never be able to train properly again because his knees cannot stand the constant pounding.
Hansen and McGrath, towards the end of their careers, only went to the training ground for treatment between games. At best, they refereed five-a-side kickabouts between massages on their aching joints.
Radebe’s only comment in the last month? “I still feel I can make an important contribution. I will play again.”
These are worrying times for the elder statesman of South Africa’s World Cup-bound footballers.