A TOAST TO OUR THREE MUSKETEERS

Sharuko On Saturday

BARRING any dramatic developments in the next few months, Michael Nees will make history as the first foreign coach to guide the Warriors at the AFCON finals in Morocco in December.

It will be an historic moment for Nees as it will mark the first time that he has taken charge of a team, and a game at the AFCON finals, since his arrival on the continent in 2003.

It will also be an historic moment for the Warriors who will also mark the first time they would be guided by a foreign coach at the AFCON finals since they first sealed their place at the tourney in 2003.

Ironically, along the way to our first Nations Cup dance in Tunisia in 2004, we qualified from a group which, among other countries, featured a Seychelles side coached by Nees.

The only time we have had a foreign coach, as part of our technical team at the AFCON finals, was when Dirk de Boer helped head coach Charles Mhlauri at the 2006 Nations Cup in Egypt.

The Dutchman probably deserves a place in the Guinness World Records as the only foreign coach, who has been part of the technical team of a country which he never visited before, and after, a major football tournament like AFCON.

Zdravko Logarusic, a Croat, came closest to becoming the first foreigner to guide us at the AFCON finals.

However, he was dismissed after his team had qualified, after he became toxic, and it became apparent he would be a disaster if he was left to take charge at the showcase.

That his subsequent adventures have since seen him take charge of an obscure team called Kenya Police, unfashionable Saudi sides A Batin and Al Tai and the Eswatini national team, where the common factor has been his dismissal, highlights that it was wrong for us to hire him in the first place.

Maybe, it would have been a better investment, in terms of foreign currency spent, if the guys who run Reps Theatre had hired Loga to come here as a comedian, with Felton Kamambo coming in as his manager, rather than as the Warriors coach.

Kamambo introducing Loga as a comedian who has “performed in most of the continents in Zimbabwe,” would certainly have passed off as just part of the comedy.

But, when Kamambo introduced Loga as someone who had “coached in most of the continents in Zimbabwe,” the magnitude of his error was clear for everyone to see and he never recovered from that.

And neither did his coach.

For it also soon became quite clear that the Croat, just like the man who had hired him, were completely out of depth with the demands of leadership in the game at this level.

Loga, Nees and Valinhos are the three foreign coaches our football leaders have experimented with in the past 18 years – a Croat, a Germany and a Croat.

They have something in common – all of them arrived here as lightweights, when it comes to coaching national teams on the continent, and didn’t have a record to show that they could really inspire teams to the success we are yearning for.

They are all experimental projects – taking a gamble on them, without any science or record to provide optimism – and just hoping that things will fall into line and, God willing, they will succeed.

All of them have never coached a national team at the AFCON finals and we hired them driven by either innocence or foolishness, taking a gamble that miracles do happen, sometimes.

There are some who even argue that if we really wanted miracle goals, and miracle results, then we should have done the simple thing by engaging the prophets who are part of our national game rather than going on such an expensive pilgrimage of hiring the lightweight foreign coaches.

THE UGLY STATISTICS WHICH MAKE IT A MOCKERY

In football, there is a saying which has defied the test of time – results don’t line, the table doesn’t lie.

Don’t be fooled by beauty, formations or whatever, in this game, all that matters are the results at the end of 90 minutes, extra-time or a penalty shootout.

It’s not a beauty contest, it’s a minimum of 22 men, with a helping hand from their coaches, battling to beat each other and, when all the madness has ended, all that matters is the result.

Lionel Messi is the World Champion even though Kylian Mbappe scored a hat-trick, and converted a penalty in the shootout, at the 2022 World Cup.

So, to try and understand the quality, or lack of it, of the foreign coaches we have hired in the last 18 years – by the way the child who was born in the year we hired Valinhos is now eligible to vote – we have to look at one simple thing – RESULTS.

And, their story is a miserable one:

Valinhos and Nees, in their official matches in charge of our Warriors, have only beaten just one opponent – NAMIBIA.
The two coaches took charge of the Warriors in 16 official games, excluding friendlies – six for Valinhos and ten for Nees – and all that they have done so far is beat just one team – NAMIBIA.
The comical Loga, in his official matches in charge of our Warriors, also beat just one opponent – BOTSWANA.
The three coaches, in their official matches in charge of our Warriors stretching 18 years, have only beaten two opponents – NAMIBIA and BOTSWANA.
Oh, by the way, there was a fifth match which Loga also won, a friendly international, and predictably it was against the same opposition they perfected the art of beating – BOTSWANA.
None of our three foreign coaches managed to inspire the Warriors to score more than two goals, in just one match, in the 30 matches, including four friendly internationals, which our boys played under their guidance.
You will see that in those 30 matches, our boys won just five games (two for Nees, two for Valinhos, including a friendly win over BOTSWANA, and one for Loga, which was an AFCON qualifier win, over BOTSWANA, of course.
That is an average of a win every six games and, given this is the average number of matches which teams play in a four-team group, we should not be surprised that these guys have been averaging just one win for us.
A combined points tally of 26 out of a possible 90 points, when one includes the four friendlies, gives a return of 43,33 percent – hardly the kind of which can justify an expensive investment into the foreign coaches we settled for.
When you remove the friendlies, the statistics plunge and you will now have 23 out of a possible 78 points, a return of 29.48 percent, which means these three men have surrendered 80,52 percent of the value of what they have been fighting for.
Together they have lost 14 of the 30 games they took charge of, which represents about half the number of matches they superintended over.
Nees has taken charge of more games than the others, and has more points than the other two, but there is very little to separate them and even though he has four games more than Valinhos, the difference in points won between them is just two points.
Both men also share the same first-choice ‘keeper – Washington Arubi.
Nees’ men have only scored three times in the first half, in the 12 games that he has taken charge of and only twice did we find ourselves in the lead at the break – when Tawanda Maswanhise swept us into the lead against Kenya and when Khama Billiat scored against Namibia.
Predictably, one of the goals had to come from a penalty, the one which Billiat converted against Namibia.
The other game, when we scored in the first half, was the 2-2 draw against Benin when Marshall Munetsi halved the deficit to 1-2 after the West Africans had taken a 2-0 lead.
So, in the other 10 games in which Nees has been in charge, our boys have failed to score in the first half and the coach, whatever he has been planning, has failed to find a formula to that.
Incredibly, since Nees’ arrival, that game against Kenya marks the only match when we took a lead in the 10 other games, which we failed to win.
We failed to score in 14 of the games which these three men have taken charge of our team.

There is a bit of sympathy for Nees and I understand it – he isn’t a comedian like Loga and he isn’t a man who appears to be in search of a rest, in an old people’s home, like Valinhos.

One of the driving factors is that Nees hasn’t been provided with the comfort of playing at home and that’s a fair argument.

However, it’s also worth noting that Benin, could be going to the World Cup for the first time, if results go their way in the final two matches, especially if Bafana Bafana, as it now looks likely, are docked points for fielding an ineligible player against Lesotho.

Benin, just like us, are under the guidance of a German coach and, just like us, they play their home matches at a neutral venue in Cote d’Ivoire.

And, please, don’t tell me about qualifying for the AFCON finals – we have done it five times before and even Loga did it with just one win against Botswana, of course.

To God Be The Glory

Peace to the GEPA Chief, the Big Fish, George Norton, Daily Service, Sitting Bull, Crazy Horse and all the Chakariboys still in the struggle.

Come on Warriors!!!!!!!!!!!!

Khamaldinhoooooooooooo!

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