Stunned, were the Egyptian fans as Thembinkosi Lorch tapped the ball behind Egyptian goal keeper Mohamed El-Shenawy in what was Bafana Bafana’s moment of brilliance to knock title favourites Egypt out of their home tournament. South Africa had pulled off the biggest upset of the tournament, triggering the resignation of a few senior names in the Egyptian football fraternity. In that moment, a national hero was born. For context, it had been downhill since the turn of the millennium for Bafana Bafana in AFCON, the last time we showed a worthy performance was back when we came third in 2000, four years after the class of ’96 won the tournament.
Bar a move abroad, Lorch was at his peak, a team hero winning Player of the Season and Player’s Player of the Season at PSL awards then netting 9 goals for Orlando Pirates as title runner-up. His goal had guaranteed our place in the knockout stage in a sensational team performance that earned him the man of the match title.
In an unrelated move, the kings of the South African summer, DJ Maphorisa and Kabza de Small, released what would be the soundtrack of the festive season, their sophomore collaborative album The Return of the Scorpion Kings. The duo were part of a breakout genre ama-piano dethroning Gqom as the sound of South African dancefloors. On this album, a Thembinkosi Lorch praise song aptly titled Lorch, was an instant hit.
“Awu Thembinkosi ng’number 10
Bathi Lorch u-passa kam’nandi
Heh ngathi Lorch u-tapper kam’nandi
Heh bathi Lorch u-spacer kam’nandi
Heh bathi Lorch, Lorch, Lorch, Lorch, Lorch, Lorch, hey
Heh bathi Lorch, Lorch, Lorch, Lorch, Lorch, yebo”
And so went the hook of what would entrench Lorch into the hearts of even those who didn’t know he was an actual person, let alone a football star. Lorch was back at the peak of popularity as he posted a video of himself jamming to the song that carries his name. On Twitter, his impressions peaked at 28.1 million, followed by Facebook peaking at 17.9 million.
Lorch’s social reach over the December period from the release of the Lorch song to the end of December peaked as he engaged with the song, coupled with general positive sentiment accompanied by a viral video containing footage curated to confirm Lorch as the lord of South African football. Below is a view on Lorch related social media sentiment throughout December.
On Wednesday 15 January, Orlando Pirates stunned title chasers Mamelodi Sundowns with a 1 – 0 defeat that handed title rivals Kaizer Chiefs a 9-point lead over Sundowns at the top of the league. Again, Lorch’s side triumphed over the favourites to upset a thrilling title chase. For context, Orlando Pirates hadn’t beaten Sundowns in a home league match since 2011.
But for Lorch, this was not his day as his name topped the trend charts for his subdued performance, 52% was negative sentiment, mostly questioning his ability in relation to the hype around his name, representing a clear decline in positive sentiment.
Ordinarily, it would be viewed as a case of just a bad day at the office, but halfway through the season, Lorch has only scored one league goal this season, compared to last seasons’ tally of 9 to share second highest scorer with two others.
Throughout the evening of the match against Sundowns into the next day, the overriding theme was Lorch’s relation to the popular song. There’s no doubt that Lorch didn’t have a great match, but the criticism seemed harsher than it should be, to an extent that he was compared to Thuso Phala, he of the dance that went viral a year or two ago.
Yes, it may just be popular culture, but how much of it can be a destructive to an athlete? Even Manchester United player Jesse Lingard had to reduce his use of social media after he faced criticism over his poor form.
Popular culture hype has surely come back to haunt Lorch, and the question is, did DJ Maphorisa and Kabza unwittingly put a target on Lorch’s back?
*Insights drawn from Meltwater.
