"Remember I'm not a darling here in South Africa, and that means this thing got two folds," Buthelezi tells KickOff.
"Remember in 1994 I was playing for Orlando Pirates, so remember if your wife decides to leave you she will never say anything good about you no matter what good deeds you did for her.
"So me leaving Pirates for Mamelodi Sundowns didn't sit well with most journalists.
"Most journalists supported Pirates that time, hence nothing good was said about me.
"They were saying I was going to Sundowns to cost them, I will get red cards and so on.
"Of course, I did get red cards while I was at Sundowns, but most of them it was against Pirates, and all of them were from white Referees.
"Most journalists didn't want Clive Barker to succeed as Bafana Bafana coach,
"So what happened is, during one of the press conferences some journalist asked him 'Why are you insisting on playing Linda? Aren't you afraid he will cost your team?'
"Clive's reply was, 'Let me tell you, there's only one person who is a backbone of this team and it's this guy, this is my Mercedes. He is a pillar of this team.
"So that's how the name came about, That's how Clive described me.
"27 times I played for the national team, and we've never lost even once.
"Maybe we drew two or three times and won the rest, in my presence.
"If you can take all these characteristics of the Mercedes Benz. That's me."