adminTHE 2016 edition of the African Nations Championships (CHAN) is underway in Rwanda and Zimbabwe is, for the umpteenth time, back to the famous drawing board.
The Warriors are already out of the biennial soccer tournament after back-to-back one-nil defeats at the hands of neighbours Zambia and Mali. As has become the norm for this country, the blame game after a nightmarish end to regional or global soccer tournament takes centre stage.
Debate in the domestic soccer circles has been centred on who got it wrong and how.
Some have pointed fingers at coach Kalisto Pasuwa and teasingly labelled him a bond coin that is only effective within the geographical boundaries of the country.
Some have blamed the players whom they think are not national team material as evidenced by their serious lack of a cutting edge where it mattered most.
Others have heaped the blame on the failure by Zifa to organise some friendly matches ahead of the tournament for the national team to get a true insight into their strengths and weaknesses well before the tournament. Whoever got it wrong at CHAN, the fact remains that we still have a life to live, mistakes to amend, a national team to support and above all an identity to be proud of.
A cursory analysis of the points being raised in this blame game after our failure at CHAN leaves us with more questions than answers.
First, it is difficult to sympathise with Pasuwa and the likeminded who believe that we could have done better only if we had friendly matches before the tournament.
Friendly matches are needed, but they are not the only form of pre-tournament preparations and for a team that had become used to assembling and travelling for qualifying matches within a few days, those weeks of training sessions they had in camp surely must have added value to their preparations only if the coaches had picked the right material.
There are clear technical shortcomings that we all witnessed and thought the coaches should also shoulder the blame.
How on earth would they have allowed play to continue for close to eight minutes with a man out of the field of play? That Zambia scored the winning goal during that period was a punishment for our technical ineptitude at this level of the game.
One wonders why the coaches kept Francisco Zekumbawire in the match against Zambia for about 80 minutes while it was crystal clear that he was just a passenger from the first whistle.
We needed not a coach from another planet to tell us that a swift change, and probably an early introduction of Roderick Mutuma could have done us a great favour.
That Mutuma was substituted in the match against Mali almost the same time that Zekumbawire was substituted in the match against Zambia leaves us wondering whether the coaches have a template guiding them on when to effect substitutions rather than analysing the pros and cons of a particular situation.
We do not seek to be seen as more knowledgeable than the coaches when it comes to executing soccer coaching duties but there are situations, almost in every other sphere of life, where common sense takes precedence.
Yes, the players did not rise up to the occasion. Granted. But we need not forget that the players who were in Rwanda were selected by the same coaches that some might want to unjustifiably exonerate.
As we look into the future, one hopes the coaches go through self introspection and improve on areas that include team selection, substitution and mental preparedness of the players.
Online Reporter