adminIAN Gorowa’s homecoming show was a damp squib in more ways than just the single goal that his misfiring Warriors scored against Mauritius, the continental football misfits from across the Indian Ocean channel, at Rufaro on Sunday. Having destroyed the lightweight opponents 3-0 in their backyard, there was a huge expectation Gorowa and his men would roll over their hopeless opponents our colleagues at The Sunday Mail even went to the extent of dubbing it a “barbecue for the Warriors.”
With the tie effectively won from the first game, the only big issue left was how Gorowa would fare, in his first home examination, before a special group of fans whose loyalty to their team hasn’t been diluted by its repeated flirtation with failure.
Or even by the crushing weight of the excess baggage of controversy that the team usually picks along the way in its endless adventure, in search of greatness, that has produced a perfect manual, for future generations to use as a reference book, on how not to be successful as a national football team.
That Gorowa’s homecoming show was an eyesore, cannot be camouflaged even by the greatest of media spin-doctors, and that his Warriors, after taking three steps forward in Mauritius, took 10 steps backwards at home, is as correct as the fact that the Indian Ocean islanders would have struggled to beat Tripple B.
They say first impressions are the most important, global rock star Rod Stewart reminded us, in his hit song of ’77, a cover version of the original song done by Cat Stevens 10 years earlier, that the first cut is certainly the deepest.
I remember the first time I saw Reinhard Fabisch, on our bench on home turf after his heroics with the Young Warriors at the ’91 All-Africa Games, and it was in that unforgettable Nations Cup qualifier against Bafana Bafana at the National Sports Stadium on September 16 in ’92 when our boys were rampant, and Peter Ndlovu unstoppable, as we triumphed 4-1.
There was that sudden flicker of light, that glimmer of hope and that golden touch of reassurance that this could be the man with the Midas Touch and, just fresh from Journalism School and still dripping with the emotions that had shaped my life as a fan of my local team Falcon Gold and the Warriors, a bond of trust immediately knitted between coach and supporter.
I was so sure I wasn’t the only one, charmed by this fiery German, that day but little did I know that an entire nation was about to be wrapped in the magical web of this coaching genius, who would take it on a journey that would bring the ecstasy of holding the Pharaohs in Lyon, France, and the heartbreak of that spectacular smash-and-grab exercise by the Zambians at the National Sports Stadium.
I’m not sure Gorowa provoked the same sense of optimism, among the fans, in his homecoming show at Rufaro on Sunday against the background of that lifeless display by his charges in a game they hobbled from one chaotic move to another before somehow finding a way past the goalkeeper, very late in the game, and then giving away a comical equaliser that was as much an embarrassment to our ‘keeper as it was a huge surprise to the clueless visitors.
But to judge Gorowa on what happened on Sunday, without looking at the build-up to that match, especially against a background of the demoralising impact that the bonus row, which saw the players refusing to train in the afternoon session on Friday, just 48 hours before their game, would be as grossly unfair as suggesting that all football writers in Harare are shameless Dynamos fans.
Or as unfair as suggesting that Fifa have just rigged the latest world Coca-Cola rankings that show we have dropped to number 116 on the globe.
To reduce a football contest to just the 90 minutes on the pitch, without really acknowledging that the one-and-half hour show is merely a culmination of a process, either boosted by proper preparations or derailed by the lack of such attention to detail, will be as primitive an approach as any that used to be found in the Stone Age when football and rugby union was still one game.
To expect the players to have their minds focused on the ball, and on their mission, just 48 hours after their minds had switched from preparations for this game and turned rebellious, where the importance of the assignment now played second fiddle to issues related to their welfare, would have been too optimistic even in a game against such hopeless misfits like Mauritius.
Gorowa’s case wasn’t helped by the fact that this kind of situation was alien to him, in his career as a football coach, because where he has learnt his trade in South Africa, everything sails so smoothly, money flows into the game to take care of the welfare of the players, even at such lower league clubs like Boroka FC.
When his players had spent the entire week preparing for their game against Mauritius, during the away fixture, without bonus or allowance issues forcing them to down their tools and disrupt an important Friday afternoon training session, they had shown the vast gulf that existed between them and the rank amateurs from the Indian Ocean island.
Even on that waterlogged pitch, they had found a way to score three times, without reply, which provided a true picture of the difference that exists in class, between the two teams, but when the demons that stalk our football returned last week, and the bonus rows erupted, it was back to square one and even poor Mauritius could steal a draw from Rufaro.
If This Is Goodbye David, Such
Is Life Mate
The Warriors’ bonus row last Friday, and its disruptive effects on the players and their focus, reminded me of the first day I met David Coltart, the new Minister of Sport in a portfolio that included Education, Arts and Culture, at a Harare hotel in 2009, and I realised that while four years have passed since then, very little has changed for the Warriors.
Then, just like last Friday, the tournament that we were competing in was CHAN, the only difference being that we had qualified for the finals in Cote d’Ivoire, by the time I met David at that hotel in the city’s northern suburbs, while right now we still have another hurdle to clear to maintain our perfect record of qualifying for every CHAN finals.
Then, just like last Friday, the Warriors were up in arms with Zifa over bonuses and allowances and poor David, in his first official assignment as Minister of Sport, found himself trying to diffuse a row whose origins he didn’t know with the players adamant they would not board the plane to Cote d’Ivoire if their demands were not met.
They had been promised a bonus for qualifying but while they had delivered the ticket to Cote d’Ivoire, Zifa had not delivered their promise, and there was chaos at that hotel when I arrived with David trying his best to advise them that the government had no money for such expenditure and persuade them to still go to Cote d’Ivoire and fight for the flag.
Of course, they went to Cote d’Ivoire, as dispirited as they were, and in their first match they led Ghana 2-0 before the Black Stars fought back to level 2-2, in their second match they rallied from behind to force a 1-1 draw against DRC and in their final match drew 0-0 against Libya.
Those Warriors were unbeaten in their three games and that their group also produced the two teams that met in the final, Ghana and DRC, put their quality into perspective and one can only imagine what they would have achieved, in that tournament, with a bit of incentives and without carrying the burden of disruptions that had characterised their final days at home.
Sadly, the demons that crippled our CHAN finals campaign in 2009, even before we had landed in Abidjan, the perennial player rows over unpaid bonuses and allowances and unfulfilled promises as a bankrupt national game continues to be trapped in a quagmire of poverty, remain even up to this very day.
It’s easy to forget that this Zifa board hadn’t yet assumed power, in February 2009, when that bonus raw ahead of the CHAN finals erupted, which means that it’s a feature that has been a common denominator in the game really.
Zifa insist Coltart did very little, some of the hawks in that organisation claim he did absolutely nothing, to help their cause and lift them from their perpetual state of insolvency and Cuthbert Dube publicly mocked the GNU as a two-headed snake, which to him was more dangerous than the conventional one-headed snake.
I’m not sure, really, if Coltart could have done more for football, in an environment where funds were always scarce, but the point really is that given he leaves our national game in exactly the same situation that he found it — penniless and hopeless — those who are taking a hit at him will find quite some justification in doing so.
But blaming Coltart for the financial mess that our national game finds itself in, claiming that he didn’t do more as the Minister to help us, would be drifting away from reality because the challenges that confront our football, worsened by perennial under-funding going back years, were not his creation and neither could they have been resolved by him alone.
Four years ago, Coltart’s first assignment in football, as Sports Minister, was to try and diffuse a row over bonuses for the Warriors and last Friday, as results confirmed he could be on his way out of government, it’s ironic isn’t it, that the national team was still reeling from the same challenges he faced when he walked into government four years ago.
If this is goodbye David, such is life mate, it’s not your problem really because Lovemore Banda summed it up quite well back in the ‘90s, when the sports segment of ZTV main news at 8pm was a must for all who loved both sport and the poetry that accompanied its reports by the anchor, our national game is a tragicomedy — the characters, like you David, will change time and again but the story remains the same.
The Zambians Are Back In Town Again
Zambia were also there, too, in Cote d’Ivoire for that CHAN final tournament in 2009, and they made the semi-finals, where they met the DRC side we had drawn against in our group game and the Congolese beat Chipolopolo 2-1 to book their place in the final.
The Zambians won the consolation prize of the bronze medals, after beating Senegal 2-1 in the third-place play-off, and nine months later, they found themselves in the Cosafa Cup final at Rufaro and were well beaten 1-3 by an inspired group of Warriors.
Four years down the line, the cream of the home-based players from Zambia and Zimbabwe meet against at Rufaro tomorrow, for a battle for a place in the CHAN finals, but if we want to find the biggest reason why our neighbours have been so successful, in the past four years, while we have stumbled from one crisis to another, we just need to look at the man, likely to be in a white shirt, on their bench.
His name is Herve Renard.
He was the Zambian coach at CHAN in Cote d’Ivoire in 2009, the Zambian coach when they lost that Cosafa Cup final 1-3 to the Warriors at Rufaro that year, the Zambian coach when they won the 2012 Nations Cup with a triumph, pregnant in emotion, in Libreville where the ill-fated plane carrying their team to a ’94 World Cup qualifier in Senegal took off for the last time, before crashing in the Atlantic moments later, and the Zambian coach when they won the Cosafa Cup on home soil last month.
It’s not surprising, isn’t it, that the Zambians are still in the race for a place in the 2014 World Cup finals, which would be their biggest achievement if they can pull it off by defying the odds and beating Ghana in Kumasi next month?
In sharp contrast, while Renard is still the coach of Chipolopolo, just as was the case at the CHAN finals in 2009 in Cote d’Ivoire, the man who was coach of the Warriors at that tournament, Sunday Chidzambwa, who made history by becoming the first gaffer to take them to the Nations Cup in 2004, is on the sidelines now.
But that is just a part of the big story, which provides a graphic illustration of why the Zambians have profited from stability in their coaching set-up while we have become victims of the recurrent upheaval that happens in that key sector of our national team, because the reality is that seven different coaches have taken charge of our Warriors in the past four years.
We have had Chidzambwa, Norman Mapeza (twice),Tom Saintfiet (briefly), Madinda Ndlovu (2011 CHAN finals), Rahman Gumbo (that heartbreaking 2013 Nations Cup campaign), Klaus Dieter Pagels (the one who dreamt about an imaginary tika-taka revolution) and Ian Gorowa in the four years that have passed since we were together with the Zambians at the 2009 CHAN finals.
It’s not that the Zambians don’t have the challenges that also stalk our football and in 2010, after the Nations Cup finals, Renard walked out on the team, was replaced briefly by Italian Mario Bonetti, who was subsequently fired, with Renard returning to take over his team.
It’s just that they seem to manage those challenges better than we do and, with success, money has poured into the game, given that the Chipolopolo shirt is now an iconic brand that defines everything good about being Zambian, and that is the reason why they can afford to pay Renard and his assistant, Patrice Beavinelle, a total of US$100 000, in salaries, every month.
Their government, for some time, footed that huge bill before two mining companies pooled resources and took over and now Grizzly Mining of Kitwe are the ones who are taking care of that massive monthly pay packet.
Ours is a sorry case, Gorowa’s pay packet has to be footed by Cuthbert Dube, the players allowances have to be footed by Cuthbert Dube, the players bonuses have to be footed by Cuthbert Dube, the cost of the team’s flight to their away matches has to be footed by Cuthbert Dube and, somehow, against all that depressing background, we still live in denial, claiming that we still have a functional Zifa board in place right now.
Someone suggested to me this week if it won’t make sense to have a national poll, for the Zifa board posts, with all football fans having a say, just like the national elections, rather than just leaving this huge responsibility to a certain group of people.
It’s All Good Stanza, I Guess Such Is Life
A lot has been written and said about the spectacular breakdown in the relationship between Callisto Pasuwa and his lieutenant Tonderai “Stanza” Ndiraya, one of the most underrated technical brains in our national game.
My brief today isn’t to try and open old wounds, at a time when both Ndiraya and Pasuwa need to move on and, crucially, when Dynamos don’t need to be the bigger victims of what is primarily an issue between their two most senior employees in their technical department.
Whatever his shortcomings, I’m not the one to judge Ndiraya today, and even though the easy thing would be to try and treat him as a nobody, someone who was irrelevant, now that he is no longer part of that DeMbare coaching set-up, I have resisted the temptation to join the bandwagon of criticism.
It’s not the first, neither is it the last time, that football coaches will drift apart, for one reason or another, but what we can’t hide away from is the fact that Ndiraya has been a loyal DeMbare son and played a big part in helping Pasuwa win the League and Cup doubles in the past two seasons.
What has impressed me, really, is the classy way he has handled his divorce from the club and where poor souls would take that as a licence to launch a verbal attack on the institution they are leaving, given the controversy surrounding the split, and some of the characters in that institution, Ndiraya has chosen diplomacy.
In his first media interview, after leaving the club, he backed Pasuwa to win a third straight league title, even without him in that technical team, backed Dynamos to win the league championship, even against a background of their average performance out of Harare this season, and backed the players at the club to stand up and be counted.
You can’t buy such class, you can’t pretend to be diplomatic when you are hurt, and just imagine if Ndiraya was one of the many coaches you can think about, all those who simply explode and go into a trance when they see a television camera or a newspaper reporter, and all the ugly stuff that you would have been reading now.
When you handle yourself with as much grace as Ndiraya has done, even when you feel you have been let down, and have the presence of mind to respect the institution that made you and the man who was your boss, you can be certain that doors will open for you in the future.
It’s all good Stanza, mate, I guess such is life.
Letter From South Africa
Dear Rob
As a South African who is more African than South African, one day I stumbled across your sports article and my brother I confess, never ever had I read any sports writing of this nature. I see Zimbabwean soccer players every day here in South Africa and I have always asked myself the same question you ask in almost every column you write — where does it go wrong? If the football association of your country can go to your archives and read, listen and learn, Zim football is the best hidden secret on this continent, similar to the emergency of Spain after so many near misses. Keep writing brother.
Andries Malema
Morningside
South Africa
Our Hopes As Fans Are Endless
Our phones have become WIRELESS, our cooking FIRELESS, our cars KEYLESS, our food FATLESS, our tyres TUBELESS, our dress SLEEVELESS, our attitude CARELESS, our relationships MEANINGLESS, our wives FEARLESS, our feelings HEARTLESS, our children MANNERLESS, our football clubs POWERLESS, our football leaders CLUELESS, our Warriors HOPELESS but still our hopes, as fans, are ENDLESS to the extent that we are now SPEECHLESS.
To God Be The Glory
Come on Warriors!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Chicharitoooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!
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