AXIS OF FAILURE

Robson Sharuko

Metros Editor

AFTER just FIVE months in charge of the Warriors, in which he took charge of only THREE competitive games, Mario Marinica has quit his post.

It’s the shortest tenure, by a foreign coach, in the history of the Warriors.

Mario’s resignation, for “personal reasons” is a surprise because, just hours before his departure was announced, he was at Rufaro watching the league match between Dynamos and ZPC Kariba.

Questions are now being asked as to why Mario would spend his Sunday afternoon trying to analyse the performance of local players when he had made up his mind that he would be quitting his post.

“The Zimbabwe Football Association (ZIFA) announces that Marian Marinica has resigned from his position as Head Coach of the Zimbabwe Senior Men’s National Team, citing personal reasons,” the association said in a statement.

“ZIFA has accepted his resignation and thanks Coach Marinica for his contribution to the Warriors. The Association wishes him well in his future endeavours.”

The overwhelming response, from those who viewed this post by ZIFA on their official X account, was dismissive of Mario.

Many of them appeared to celebrate his resignation.

However, it’s important to note that views expressed on X do not reflect the general views of Zimbabweans.

Mario took charge of just three competitive games with all of them coming at the 2025 AFCON finals in Morocco in December last year.

He lost two games to Egypt and South Africa and drew the other against Angola.

Those who backed Mario will point to the improvement, when it comes to scoring, which the Warriors showed, under his tutelage.

However, those who questioned his pedigree will point to his questionable player selection, including a bizarre decision to relegate Tawanda Mwaswanhise to the bench in the first two matches at the AFCON finals, before pressure from fans forced him to throw him into the starting XI against Bafana Bafana.

Maswanhise responded with a man-of-the-match performance to show Mario that his decision to relegate him to the bench was as flawed as it was foolish.

He was later named one of the three emerging African players to watch by CAF after his impressive show against Bafana Bafana.

The irony was that such a talent was considered not good enough by Mario, for the first two games of the AFCON campaign, with the Romania basing his decision on his faith in some bizarre science which, in reality, looked more like witchcraft.

Maswanhise has continued to shine after the AFCON finals and has been shortlisted for the Scottish Premiership PFA Player of the Year award.

Mario’s Cold War with Marshall Munetsi has also been a big talking point.

The Romanian, who was fired from his two previous roles in charge of Malawi and Liberia, was the third European coach to take charge of the Warriors in the past six years.

Zdravko Logarusic and Michael Nees are the other coaches.

Interestingly, their collective results, when it comes to competitive matches, are very, very poor.

In twenty four competitive games — World Cup, AFCON and CHAN matches — the trio won just THREE games and against just TWO opponents — Namibia and Botswana.

They drew nine games and lost the other TWELVE.

Nees guided the Warriors to two wins over Namibia while Loga guided them to just one win over Botswana.

He took charge of 12 competitive matches, won two, drew six and lost four.

Loga took charge of nine competitive matches, won one, drew two and lost six.

Loga was fired just before the Warriors took part at the AFCON finals, which they had qualified for, after just their one win over Botswana.

Mario guided the Warriors in an AFCON finals where the bar was so low a team with two points, Tanzania, ended up qualifying for the knockout phase of the tourney.