Minnesota United have a star in the making with Bongokuhle Hlongwane
"If he can start putting goals and end product to the energy that he brings to the group, then we'll have a serious player on our hands," Minnesota United manager Adrian Heath said of his young winger Bongokuhle Hlongwane.
Minnesota United's 22-year-old winger is in his second season with the club and through 13 games leads the team with five goals.
Bongokuhle Hlongwane (bong-go-HOOK-le Hluh-ONG-wah-ney), or Bongi for short, has been an ever present threat in the Loons attack this season.
In Wednesday night's match against Houston Dynamo, Hlongwane showed off his pace to take advantage of a bad giveaway by the Dynamo defense and score with the outside of his foot through a pair of defenders for the only goal of the game.
The goal was a showcase of Hlongwane's development since joining Minnesota at the beginning of the 2022 season. Hlongwane played his first professional game at 18 for his hometown team Martizburg United in the top flight of South African soccer, the South African Premier Division.
Bongi scored eight goals and had seven assists in four seasons with Martizburg, earning his first call up to the South African National Team in July 2019. With the national team, has four goals in 11 appearances.
In his first season in Minnesota, Hlongwane played in 29 matches, scoring twice and recording four assists in league play. Not exactly outstanding output, but for a young man who only started playing professionally three years prior and was playing nearly 9,000 miles from home at the age of 21, there was enough there to be excited about his future.
Through 12 regular season games this season, Hlongwane leads Minnesota with 25 shots, putting a team-high 13 on target.
Bongi's 13 shots-on-target is tied for fourth most in the entire league this season.
And his improvement can been seen, quite simply, by the eye test, as he has been making better runs, getting himself in more dangerous areas, and playing a more physical style than Loons fans saw last year.
The South African took over last Tuesday's US Open Cup match against last year's league runner-up Philadelphia Union. With the game scoreless in the 63rd minute, Heath brought on Hlongwane and five minutes later the winger put the Loons up 1-0 with an expertly-placed header.
A short five minutes after his opening goal, Hlongwane used some silky footwork and a great pass to assist on the second goal for the Loons. Bongi then went on to score in extra time off a filthy back heal. Minnesota eventually won on penalty kicks.
The improvement shows up on the stats sheet as well. In 2021, Hlongwane finished the season with 17 shots-on-target from 44 total shots, good for a 38.6 on target percentage. That percentage has jumped to 52% this season while his shots-per-90 stat has dropped a bit from 2.48 to 2.33, though his shots-on-target per 90 minutes has jumped from 0.96 to 1.21.
That 1.21 SoT/90 number is the same as Atlanta United's star midfielder Thiago Almada, who is rumored to be in the sights of some of the biggest clubs in Europe for a league record-breaking move this summer.
Hlongwane played mainly on the right wing last season and been used on both wings this season, at times supplanting Franco Fragapane for the starting left wing role.
Without their star playmaker Emanuel Reynoso (10 goals, 11 assists in 2022), the Loons needed someone to step up, and Bongokuhle Hlongwane has provided the lift.
Now that Reynoso's suspension has ended, signaling his return to the lineup within the next few weeks, opposing defenses will start shifting their attention away from Hlongwane. When that happens, watch out.
