I felt that I had to author this immediately considering the consistent discussions that we are likely to have in pursuit of the Fifa Soccer World Cup and our representative teams’ participation. Whilst I acknowledge that to err is human but I think we need to make conscious efforts to avoid it. I guess that’s why laws exist to discourage us from certain behaviours.
Public commentary has a responsibility. When you are a public figure and you equate a footballer returning from poor form to “coming back from a coma,” the damage extends far beyond the intended insult or expression of unhappiness. In fact, it tends to damage the debate, the person targeted, and most grievously, the thousands of families in South Africa who live with the reality of coma every day. This is not rhetorical flair. It is a betrayal of language and what it is meant to be.
This angle examines the mechanics of that betrayal, why “coma” is part of a wider pattern, and why such language is incompatible with any serious conversation about football or human dignity.
THE ANATOMY OF THE PHRASE “COMA”
“Back from the coma” appears surgical. It suggests a player was clinically absent, then suddenly revived. The intent is to mock form, fitness, or contribution. The effect is to borrow the gravity of a medical crisis for cheap emphasis.
A coma is not a metaphor for poor performance. A coma is a state of prolonged unconsciousness where the brain cannot respond to its environment. It is measured on the Glasgow Coma Scale. It involves family vigils, medical teams, ethical decisions, and the constant fear of loss. To reduce that to a punchline about a misplaced pass is to commit category error on a human level.
The phrase does not criticise football. It weaponises suffering.
DISRESPECT TO THOSE CURRENTLY IN A COMA
At this moment, in ICU wards across Johannesburg, Durban, Cape Town, Mthatha, etc, there are patients who have not opened their eyes for days, weeks, months. Their families sit beside machines that breathe for them. Each beep carries weight. Each small movement by a finger is recorded as hope.
To call a fit, training, match-playing footballer “back from a coma” is to tell those families their reality is interchangeable with a sports narrative. It implies that waking from actual unconsciousness is comparable to regaining match fitness after injury or poor selection. It is not. The distance between a hospital bed and a training pitch is the distance between life and death.
That comparison steals the specificity of their pain and repackages it as entertainment. For a parent who has not heard their child speak in 40 days, hearing a pundit use “coma” to describe a substitute appearance is not just tone-deaf. It is erasure.
DISRESPECT TO RELATIVES IN WAITING
The disrespect lands hardest on relatives.
The mother, father, sibling, or spouse who has rearranged their entire life around hospital visiting hours. Who has learned medical terms they never wanted to know. Who celebrates a slight squeeze of the hand the way most people celebrate goals.
For them, “coma” is not a figure of speech. It is the word that defines their present. It is the reason for sleepless nights and financial strain. It is the boundary between before and after.
When media figures use it casually, they signal that this boundary is negotiable. That the word can mean both “clinical crisis” and “bad game” depending on what gets more attention. That inconsistency forces families to defend the seriousness of their situation against a world that keeps borrowing their language for jokes.
That is not freedom of speech. It is linguistic theft.
A WIDER PATTER, NOT AN ISOLATED MISTAKE
“Coma” is not the first time football language has stolen from medical trauma. It follows a pattern that keeps repeating because no uncompromising standard was set:
“Cancer of football” / “Cancer to the team”
Pundits use it for players with bad attitude. Cancer is chemotherapy, loss, grief for thousands of SA families. Reducing it to “lazy midfielder” equates their pain with poor work rate. The actual issue — team culture — gets lost in outrage.
“Paralysed performance” / “Team was in a wheelchair”
Used for slow, static play. Paralysis is a lifelong reality for millions. For a family caring for someone in a wheelchair, hearing it describe bad passing says their reality equals boring football. We lose the chance to analyse real causes: low PPDA, no vertical passes, poor spacing.
“Autistic performance” / “He’s so bipolar”
Dropped when a player shows no emotion or is inconsistent. Autism and bipolar disorder are clinical diagnoses affecting millions of South Africans. Using them as insults for “emotionless” or “moody” stigmatises families fighting for understanding daily. Players who actually struggle then stay silent.
“Raped the defence”
Old-school commentary for 4-0 scorelines. Rape is violent crime and trauma. One in three SA women will experience sexual violence. Using it for a scoreline is obscene. FIFA and broadcasters now ban it because it drove women and survivors away from football talk.
The pattern is identical every time: Take a serious medical/trauma word, stretch it to mean “bad/weak/slow”, get clicks in the moment, destroy nuance, hurt vulnerable people, end the debate.
“Coma” is just the latest example. That is why the line must be absolute now.
The Cost to Football Progress
Beyond the human cost, the phrase kills the football conversation it pretends to serve. The valid question behind the insult is worth asking: “Is Hugo Broos selecting players on current form or on loyalty?” That question requires data. Minutes played in PSL vs Europe. Pressing success rates. Goals per 90. Tactical fit.
“Back from the coma” ends that inquiry. No analyst discusses stats after the phrase drops. No coach answers with tactics. The entire exchange becomes about the word itself. Sensationalism has once again defeated substance. And South African football loses another opportunity to have a rigorous, evidence-based debate about selection.
When we accept language that borrows trauma for impact, we accept that our football discourse will stay shallow. Progress requires precision. Coma is not precise. It is exploitative.
AN UNCOMPROMISING STANDARD
There is no room for negotiation here. The standard must be absolute and uncompromising:
Medical conditions are not rhetorical devices
Coma, cancer, stroke, paralysis, autism — these describe real human suffering. They are excluded from metaphor. If you want to describe poor form, use football terms: out of rhythm, lacking sharpness, low work rate. Leave medicine to doctors.
Influence carries duty
A legend’s words carry more weight than a fan’s tweet. With that weight comes the duty to choose language that does not collateral-damage vulnerable people. If the point cannot be made without appropriating medical trauma, then the point is not well made.
Respect is not conditional
Uou cannot demand respect for yourself or your generation of players while denying respect to patients and their families. The rule applies in both directions or it applies to no one.
Conclusion: Words Build or Words Wound
Language is never neutral. “Back from the coma” builds nothing. It wounds patients, it wounds families, and it wounds the football debate. And it continues a pattern that has already cost us “cancer”, “paralysed”, and “raped” in our football vocabulary.
If South African football is to progress, its conversations must progress too. That means rejecting any phrase that needs someone else’s pain to land its point. We can be critical without being cruel. We can be blunt without being reckless.
The measure of a serious football culture is not how loudly it shouts. It is how carefully it speaks when the stakes are high. On that measure, the coma metaphor fails completely.
Let serious critique return to the pitch. Leave the ICU out of it.