Online Reporter
IN yesterday’s issue of H-Metro, we reported that the Warriors kit has triggered controversy and has been met with a storm of both disapproval and condemnation.
We reported that emotions have been running high among the fans.
We have seen a number of former Warriors even being drawn into the debate and criticising the kit.
However, we said that at H-Metro, we have taken a deliberate position that we should not flood our spaces with stories related to the kit – from those who approve it to those who are not happy with it.
Instead, we feel that, with just a few days before our boys plunge into action with a date against Mo Salah and his Pharaohs in our first game at the AFCON finals, this is not the time to waste our energy on the quality, or lack of it, of our kit.
Yes, our appearance matters but that is not the reason we are going to the AFCON finals.
We didn’t qualify for the tournament to win the title of being the best dressed team at the finals.
We qualified to take on the best teams on the continent and show them that we also have a team that can compete at the very highest level.
We qualified for this tournament to try, once again, to make it beyond the group stages.
We did not hire a foreign coach so that he goes back home, after his contract has expired or we fire him, and he tells his grandkids that the best thing he loved was that we had the best kit in Africa.
We hired him to deliver us to a place where we have never been in the past – the good feeling that comes with playing in the knockout stages of AFCON.
Super Mario, the coach we hired, knows the feeling because he took Malawi into that phase of the competition.
Along the way, his team beat us.
As a nation the choice is ours.
We can choose to spend the next few weeks bashing ZIFA and concentrating on the controversy related to the kit issue or we can spend the time rallying behind our troops.
When the games begin, in a few days’ time, what matters will be the result of the three group matches we are going to play.
If we beat the Pharaohs in our first match, we will generate headlines around the world and all that positive coverage will not be about whether we had the better kit during that showdown.
What will be making headlines is our giant-killing act.
This is where our focus should be as a nation – to provide the morale support that our boys need to feel that we are all behind their project and we want them to succeed at the AFCON finals.
We can discuss the issue of the kit after the tournament and wouldn’t it be such a lovely discussion when we hold it in an environment where we would be celebrating our best performance at the AFCON finals?
Mathew Masinge