Bongi Hlongwane was unsatisfied with his first season in MLS, so he went to … the beach?

After scoring only two goals in 1,598 league minutes in 2022, the Minnesota United winger didn’t grab a paperback book, cold beverages and an umbrella to sit by the water. He put in extra workouts on sand at Lakes Commons Park in Blaine.

“It was all the hard work that I was putting in in training and outside of training by myself,” Hlongwane told the Pioneer Press last week. “I think that helped me a lot to push, knowing in my first season, I didn’t do well. The second season, I had to show something.”

In 2023, Hlongwane scored eight MLS goals in 2,488 minutes. He totaled 17 goals in all competitions, including seven in Leagues Cup and two more in U.S. Open Cup matches.

“I was doing so much,” Hlongwane said about his overtime hours. “From here, then to my place and just chill a bit. Then around 4 (p.m.), I go to … the lake because there is a sand beach there. I work on it to keep myself fit and be confident most of the time, because if I know I’m fit, I’m not afraid of anything.”

If Hlongwane has extra motivation this season, he is not letting on. The South African declined to comment on his exclusion from the national team for African Cup of Nations.

“I wouldn’t want to speak for him,” Loons interim head coach Cameron Knowles said, “but I imagine there is great disappointment to not be involved in that tournament.”

Hlongwane had been a member of the South African team during qualification rounds for the World Cup and African Cup of Nations.

In early January, South Africa’s head coach Hugo Broos gave an explanation as to why Hlongwane and St. Louis City’s Njabulo Blom were left off the national team.

“The problem with these guys is that they haven’t been playing,” Broos was quoted as saying. “The league (MLS) stopped in October. OK, they have been training because Hlongwane is training with Marizburg United (his former club in South Africa) and Blom is training with SuperSport (United), I think, but OK they don’t play games for two months.

“Don’t forget that AFCON is a very intense tournament, you need the rhythm of the game,” Broos continued. “It’s possible, but it’s difficult after two months without a game and it will be two months and a half, because we only start AFCON (in mid-January) and then suddenly, we have to be at a good level.”

South Africa has since advanced out of the African Cup of Nations (AFCON) group stage to a round of 16 match against Morocco on Tuesday. Hlongwane, who is currently in South Africa working on his U.S. green card, will have to watch from afar — or put in another workout.

Last season, Knowles coached the Loons’ developmental team, but watched Hlongwane’s breakout year.

“He had a fantastic season,” Knowles said Thursday. “You see the work rate and the energy he brings to games and training. That is something that we are certainly going to need.”

The Loons will start implementing a pressing system under new Chief Soccer Officer Khaled El-Ahmad, with Hlongwane’s two-way hustle representing one of the players best suited for the new style of play.

Hlongwane said he is not concerning himself with the lack of a permanent head coach with the start of the regular season one month away.

“The only thing I’m here for is to do my work,” Hlongwane said. “Whatever the team do, we have to adjust to that. We can’t change anything. We are players, and we have to focus on our work.”

Hlongwane’s work appears to be shifting more from the right side of the Loons’ attack last season to the left side this year. Hlongwane is predominately a right-footed player, with eight of his 10 total MLS goals coming off that foot.

“I think I was more comfortable on the right than being on the left,” he said. “Because whenever I cut in and whenever I shoot with my right … it has to be perfect. But when I play on the right and I use my left, if I shoot, and it goes over the bar, I’m like, ‘Oh it’s my left, I know.’ I’ll adjust to playing on the left.”

Hlongwane said his favorite goals from last season came in the Leagues Cup match against Mexican club Puebla. He went on a long run down the right side, dribbled past a defender and used his right foot to finish inside the far post. He made it a brace with a rare header goal in the second half as the Loons advanced.

Those goals started a hot stretch for Hlongwane, when, at one point, he was outpacing Lionel Messi for the Leagues Cup golden boot race. The Inter Miami superstar won the leading scorer title, finishing with 10 goals to Hlongwane’s seven.

Even if his polite nature keeps him from talking about being shunned for AFCON, he wants to push on in 2024.

“I just want to do more than I was doing last year; I want to be better than last season,” Hlongwane said. “I’m going to try to work on some different things to up my game. … Once I’m fit, I think everything is going to be easy for me to know what to do in the game.”

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