Caf A badge: Local coaches losing out on opportunities

Talking football with Zenzo Moyo
FOR the last few years, for varying reasons, Zimbabwe has not held a Caf coaching course and this has had varying challenges to this very key sector of our football and its development.

And without these key courses many of developing coaches have been denied opportunities to grow into their desired professions. For over eight years, we haven’t had coaching courses in this country. We need to remember that while we wait, years are passing by and if these courses had been held during this time, very few of our younger coaches would be without full qualifications by now.

And now they are aging and what were once young coaches will soon be over the hill and will need to be replaced by a new generation of coaches. More training modules are required to equip coaches with modern training methods.

We need Zimbabwe Football Association (Zifa) to immediately seek to return these courses as they will empower our coaches not only with key knowledge but also as an avenue for their own personal development and growth in this profession.

We need to return to the days of introductory courses all the way to professional coaching certificates. We must also remember that when a coach does their first course, they have to go through a certain period during which they learn the practical parts of their profession before they go to do the next stage. And these gaps now mean that coaches will go for years before they are qualified to sit on the bench for top flight clubs.

And this is time that our coaches do not have – they are growing older and by now many should have completed all their badges.

Some of these coaches have gone through the mill for our football and yet now we cannot celebrate their contributions to football by allowing them an opportunity to work and earn an honest living. They have earned the right to sit on those benches and coach if they so can.

Why are we denying them this? We seem to forget very fast just what some of these guys have been doing for our football from the time they could just about kick the ball.

What is clear is that the country is in dire need of more adept coaches who can aid the development of football.

Although Zimbabwe is often called the sleeping giant of football, it is yet to wake up. There are many underlying reasons for the poor performance in terms of developing football in the country.

The education of football coaches was on the rise after the turn of the century, but coaching courses have not been held in a while, this has all but come to a stop entirely.

Without the expertise of technically adept coaches, success of players can and will become limited. One of the biggest reasons why Zimbabwe lags behind in terms of producing talented players can be found in the lack of structure of it especially in recent years as a result of having to few fully qualified coaches.

The education of football coaches in Zimbabwe, like everywhere else in the world, is part of the structure that develops a young talented footballer into a full-fledged professional. The grassroots development is essential to increasing the standard of the game and the players. Zimbabwe’s focus towards developing grassroots football is growing, but it can grow even faster with a few tweaks.

There is a clear and very present need for trained coaches in Zimbabwe right now. A coach works as a guide to players in all kinds of sports. They are essential in identifying the strong and weak points of a player and working on improving them. Coaches motivate the players to improve, encourage them to work on their weaknesses and help them hone their skills.

If a player does not get expert coaching from a young age, they grow up lacking many basic and essential skills.

However, work needs to be done to educate coaches on how to perform on these parameters.  There are plenty of resources which can be put into effect to train coaches. The stakeholders of football in Zimbabwe must work in tandem with local and international organisations for the education of football coaches. Modules that align with international footballing standards, seminars and camps that focus on introducing coaches with new techniques will help their growth.

This is where the stakeholders of football in Zimbabwe must realize that education of coaches is as important as grassroots development. In order to uplift the standards of football in the country, the country needs a new generation of coaches, who have the necessary skills.

Coaching techniques in football are constantly growing and changing. New methods are taking over the old skills along with generational culture awareness is becoming essential. An upcoming coach needs to be aware of the type of media young players consume and how they base their principles.

For a fact, it is not the coaches’ fault that they have not been able to complete their badges as expected and they cannot continue to be punished for what is no fault of theirs!

God bless and it is good to be back after a few weeks’ sabbatical.