Let us revisit national team selection criteria

Sikhumbuzo Moyo, Acting Sports Editor
THE criteria used to select persons to participate in national teams in whatever sport code, is for one to be active at club level, its for the player to consistently perform for his club because the ultimate objective for any player is to don his or her national team jersey.

It is only when an athlete meets this threshold that he or she should expect a call from the national team manager advising him or her that the national team coach has settled for him or her.

There is nothing as fulfilling as that. We have seen, especially in football, players asking to be released by their clubs so that they could join new employers for game time and enhance their chances of keeping their national team jersey because they know that once they fall down the packing order at their clubs, it is highly likely that the national team coaches would also look elsewhere.

Its only fair that active and in form players get called up to the national team. There must not be a permanent team sheet for the national team and players must know that their only ticket to the national squad is good club level performance, not connections.

In Zimbabwe though, we seem to be singing from a different hymn book as players can just be called up on the basis that they have previously been called up to the national team. We used to see it when Donovan Bernard was with How Mine. He would always be called up even though Munyaradzi Diya was the first choice goalkeeper at the gold miners. Some of these players even brag to their colleagues that whatever happens, their national team jersey is guaranteed.

One can only imagine how those who were starting at club level felt every time they were left out yet their teammates, who were bench warmers, were preferred national team material.

The reason for these bizarre call-ups was put squarely on corrupt player intermediaries conniving with those in the national team set up so that players under their stables were called in order to add more national team caps and enhance their chances of getting lucrative contracts especially in Europe.

Conflict of interest is thrown out of the window and the custodians of the game locally, Zifa, instead of stamping their authority, also turn the other way and pretend all is well. At one time we had a national team coach who was under the stable of a certain player intermediary and it was never surprising that the squad was dominated by players from that stable and again, Zifa saw no evil and heard no evil.

This week as preparations for the crucial Total Caf African Nations Cup qualifiers against continental powerhouse Algeria got underway, Warriors coach, Loga, called up his preferred players for the job and one of the players called up was clubless Ovidy Karuru.

Here is a player who got released by a modest club in South Africa, Stellenbosch, who felt that he was no longer good enough for their objectives but a whole national team believes the player is key for the upcoming job against a not so ordinary opponent in Algeria.

Loga told the media that even though Karuru was clubless, he was active last season and the national team technical team will assess his level of fitness to see if he was up for the challenge.

Surely we could have called up other players who were also active and are still attached to even bigger and better clubs. I certainly hope that coach Loga has not been captured by these player intermediaries or other forces within the Zifa set up. An active Karuru can be a vital cog in the national team set up but the reality on the ground is that at the moment, the player is jobless and therefore doesn’t deserve to don the national team jersey.

Coach Loga must rise above unproductive politics because failure to qualify for the Afcon finals after a loss to Algeria will be squarely on his shoulders, not those shadowy characters who would have influenced him to select players who are not only inactive but clubless.

There is need to end this childish belief that any player who plays outside our borders, especially in South Africa or Europe is an automatic choice for the national team jersey, players must be chosen on merit, playing merit not on any other like which stable he belongs to or who within Zifa can speak on his behalf.

That having been said, we wish the Warriors nothing but the best when they take on the Desert Foxes in eight days and in the same order, call upon coach Loga to avoid being trapped into the player intermediary influence or any other person outside the national team technical set up.