Olwethu Makhanya: From Doubt to Defensive Pillar at Rangers

Olwethu Makhanya still remembers the phone call that kept his football dream alive.

At 16, the South African defender had left home for Johannesburg, chasing a contract and a future in the game. It went badly. Trials stalled, belief drained, and the idea of turning back began to feel like the only sensible option.

“I went away from home for the first time, tried, but things were not going well,” he recalled. “I called my mum this one day. I told her ‘I just want to come back, maybe focus on education because maybe football is not for me.’”

The answer on the other end of the line changed everything.

“The thing that she told me over the phone was that ‘you left here telling me that you're going to go play football, so I want you to do that.’ I just had to keep on going until things came true for me.”

That push kept him in Johannesburg. It took him to Stellenbosch. It took him to Philadelphia Union. Now, at 22, it has carried him into the heart of Derek McInnes’ Rangers defence, where he has settled with the kind of calm that makes it look like he has been there for years rather than months.

From doubt to defensive pillar

Makhanya is clear about where the credit lies.

“I think my parents, especially my mum, played a really big role in me becoming a professional footballer,” he said. That role is now written all over his journey: a teenager on the verge of giving up, turned into an international defender anchoring a back line that suddenly looks mean.

Since his summer arrival from Philadelphia Union, Makhanya has been central to a Rangers side that has quietly put together a four-game league winning run, conceding just once in that spell. The numbers are tidy, but the manner of it has mattered just as much.

Their late midweek win over St Mirren felt like a small statement of intent.

“I think it does highlight the fact that maybe the group is strong mentally,” Makhanya said. “That shows a lot of mentality and character from the boys.

“It's going to be very important to stay together. I think it shows a lot of togetherness and it's something that we've been working on off the field.”

The steel in those performances has come at the perfect time.

Old Firm on the horizon

Next up is Celtic. A League Cup quarter-final. An Old Firm derby that will test every inch of that supposed togetherness and mental strength.

For Makhanya, this is new territory.

The centre-half admitted he has never played in anything close to this kind of occasion. No derby back home, no playoff in MLS, nothing on his CV yet compares to the scale and fury of Rangers v Celtic.

“I think everyone understands what this fixture means to the club, to the fans and everyone,” he said. “I'm really excited and looking forward to it.

“I just know that it's going to be a very passionate game. I'm honestly expecting a really, really crazy game from the fans.”

He knows what awaits him: noise, chaos, tackles that rattle, every touch judged. For some players, that can suffocate. For others, it can lift them.

Makhanya sounds ready to lean into it.

“We just have to try and do our job and deliver because we know the fans are going to be behind us,” he said. “We're going to use them as an encouragement and also understand that we're also doing it for them. They're going to be very helpful for us.”

From that teenage phone call in Johannesburg to a white-hot Old Firm quarter-final, the stakes have changed. The voice in his ear has not.