Stars of Africa Academy director Farouk Khan says the national Under-17 side will need the other players to come to the party if they want to go all the way in the AFCON finals.
Mabena has been a star in the Under-17 tournament that is currently underway in Algeria.
South Africa has booked their place in the quarterfinals of the Under-17 AFCON after going through as one of the best third-placed teams.
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They will now face Senegal in the last eight.
"I think we should celebrate reaching the quarterfinals it's better than how we've done in the past, we've been starved of success at the national team level," Khan tells KickOff.
"Obviously it's not ideal, but it's a good start looking at the fact that we managed to get into the group stage.
"I think Mabena is a huge factor, I think if we exclude Mabena it will not be as effective as it should be.
"So, I think it's a blessing to have Mabena, we need to find more Mabenas.
"I think he just proved to the country we do have talent, he sent out a message to everybody including government to start development at a very tender age.
"Going all the way it depends on this young team if on the day everything goes well in terms of performance.
"At the end of the day we haven't met any formidable team, we met Morocco who had just put a team together.
"We then went on to beat Zambia who are within our region, and to be fair we cannot jump for joy with that, we were expected to beat them.
"Then we lost to Nigeria, so we haven't been yet convincing, but yes we have to celebrate the fact that we are in the quarterfinals."
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