Makhanya has been sensational for new club Rangers in the Scottish Premiership this season and helped them to a 3-0 League Cup quarter-final win over old foes Celtic at the weekend.
The 22-year-old has been so good that he has been likened to former Rangers favourite Jean-Alain Boumsong, not just for his defending but also his ability to carry the ball forward and initiate attacks.
There appears to be some disbelief in Glasgow that they managed to get such a cultured player for only £3 million from Philadelphia Union in Major League Soccer.
Makhanya did not get a look-in at the World Cup, with Mbokazi and Ime Okon preferred, but with the former injured and the latter used sparingly this season by 2. Bundesliga side Hannover, there is every chance Makhanya starts against Guinea on September 26.
It has not been all plain sailing for the defender, who admits he struggled to find a club as a teenager and thought about giving up the game.
“I started playing football at a very young age,” Makhanya told Scotland’s Daily Record.
“My dad would come back from work and would take me to training and during games he would come and watch me play.
“I would wake up and go to school like any normal kid, but I was thinking about football all the time. Everything for me was around football because that is what I have been doing my whole life.
“When I was 16, that is when I left home for the very first time. I went to Johannesburg looking for better opportunities, but when I got there it was a difficult journey for me.
“I went to multiple teams trying to get signed and nothing was happening. I ended up calling my mum. I told her, ‘I just want to come back, maybe focus on education because maybe football is not for me.’
“She just said, ‘You told me you were going there, so don’t come back until you do it.’ So I just had to keep on going until things came through for me.
“I had money to come back home but I decided to use it to go to a different city in search of more opportunities because my mum said I had to finish what I started.
“I ended up flying to Polokwane and that is where I signed my first professional contract at academy level with Marumo Gallants. If it wasn’t for my mum, I don’t think I would still be playing.
“My family have been really supportive and they have been so important, especially my mum and dad. I don’t really come from a home that had a lot, but they always made sure I had soccer boots and everything I needed.”
He ended up moving to Stellenbosch FC, where he made his debut as an 18-year-old, and was then swiftly off to the United States and Philadelphia Union before his move to Scotland.
“As for my form, I would say so far, so good. I feel like I’ve been settling in well,” he said. “To be honest, even before I came here, I always felt like I could play at this level, at a higher level. So I wouldn’t say I’m surprised because coming in I already had the belief that I’d do well.
“I feel defensively there’s a very good partnership between me and (centre-back partner Manny) Fernandez, with James Penrice on the left and obviously Dujon Sterling on the other side.
“I feel like there’s a lot of understanding and the guys have worked with me very well. So it makes it easy for me to be part of the group.”