Online Reporter
Sharuko on Saturday
IN the week that Michael Nees was unveiled as the Warriors coach, I used this blog to question what appeared to me to be a strange appointment.
That was in August last year.
It didn’t make sense to me that a country, whose immediate target was to make it past the group stages of the AFCON finals, could believe that a coach, who has never guided a team at the tournament, could be the one to work such magic.
It didn’t make sense to me that it had taken Nees more than two decades in the trenches of African football for him to finally take a team to the AFCON finals.
Neither did it make any sense to me that Nees was 57 years-old, at the time of his appointment.
I wasn’t at the media conference where Nees was unveiled, I was on vacation and, as I usually do on such occasions, I was back home in Chakari with the people who really matter in my life.
The immediate reaction I got was that Nees was warmly welcomed by my fellow journalists and he left a huge impression on all the guys who attended that unveiling ceremony.
My colleagues told me that he exuded confidence and was very knowledgeable about Zimbabwean footballers, the players that we have and the players that we can have.
Even the fans’ reaction was warm, the comments on social media were refreshing and there was an air of expectation among the supporters that Nees could add real value to their Warriors.
However, I made it clear on this blog, in that very week, that I didn’t share their optimism even though, just like them, I also wanted Nees to succeed simply because he was now the head coach of my team.
And, I made it clear that European coaches have come here and deceived us before and I reminded my colleagues, and the fans, that this was also the case when Zdravko Logarusic was unveiled.
Like Nees, he also stole the show at his unveiling ceremony.
But, I cautioned, this was also the same Loga who went on to win just one of the 14 international matches that he took care of during his time in charge of the Warriors.
The only team he was good enough to beat was Botswana and, in those 14 games, he showed us that one doesn’t need to be a showman, who makes a big impression at his unveiling ceremony, for one to provide a guarantee that he will be successful.
So, despite Nees’ fine performance at his unveiling ceremony, I cautioned that it should not blind us from the reality that we appeared to have gone back to the flawed formula which brought in Loga for a similar assignment.
I highlighted that 21 years earlier, we qualified for our maiden AFCON finals –ending two decades of heartbreaks in which we had perfected the art of always collapsing on the final hurdle.
That was in 2003.
I highlighted it was also the year Nees arrived in Africa to start his adventure of coaching in the jungles of football on the continent and for him to be in a situation where he had never taken a team to the AFCON finals was an indication of his shortcomings as a coach.
When we line up for our first match against Egypt in Morocco in December at the 2025 AFCON finals, we will be playing our 16th match at this level of the game.
The coach who would be guiding us will be taking charge of his first game at this level of the game, he will be learning about the challenges of the game at this level for the first time in his career.
And, somehow, this is the same man that we expect to provide the technical and tactical leadership that we need to, at least, go beyond the group stages of the AFCON finals for the first time in our history.
His CV now shows that his best achievement in his career is helping Zimbabwe qualify for the Nations Cup finals and it means that even if he leaves today, he will consider his stint a success.
What about us?
WHAT DID THEY SEE IN NEES’ CV?
But this is routine stuff which Sunday Chidzambwa has managed to do twice in his career, something which Charles Mhlauri did at the first time of asking and something which Kalisto Pasuwa also did at the first time of asking.
It’s something which even Loga did with just one win over Botswana in today’s crazy world where the AFCON finals are graced by 24 teams – about half the membership of CAF.
When we fired Loga, before we even went to the 2021 AFCON finals, it was a demonstration of our ambitions as a country that we no longer consider qualifying for the tournament as a success story.
Now, some people are saying give Nees a chance because he helped us qualify for the AFCON finals and, just like Loga before him, beat just one team (Namibia).
Nees appears to think that we should all go down on our knees and thank God for his presence in our Warriors dressing room.
You get this feeling that he thinks we are a backward football nation, trapped in some age of mediocrity and his favourite song is singing about the moments we have failed as a nation.
What he conveniently forgets is that a fellow German coach, more capable than these carpenters who now masquerade as elite football coaches, once took us within just 90 minutes of the World Cup finals.
He mocks us that we have just one player, Marshall Munetsi, who is playing regularly at the top level in Europe and because of that we should always limit our ambitions as a country.
What he doesn’t also tell us is that South Africa also have one player, Lyle Foster, who is playing regularly at the top level in Europe and, unlike us, they are doing well and going to the World Cup.
If success can only be guaranteed by having top players who are playing regularly at the top level in Europe, as he suggests, why then did Lesotho – without even one player in Europe – end up seven points better than us in the World Cup qualifiers?
If Lesotho’s best player is based in Namibia, a league considered inferior by the likes of Moses Shidolo and Sadney Urikhob who ditched it and came to play in our domestic Premiership, why then did the Crocodiles beat us back-to-back in our World Cup qualifiers?
Don’t tell me that it’s because we have no home ground because Lesotho also don’t have a home ground but they still finished 12 points ahead of us.
Benin also don’t have a home ground but, with just one game to go in the qualifiers, they held a two-point lead in the race for a place at the next World Cup finals.
The only difference between us and Benin is that they have a proper German coach, Gernot Rohr, while we have a lightweight German coach.
Check the countries which Rohr has taken charge of – Burkina Faso and Nigeria – and check the countries which our coach has taken charge of – Seychelles and Rwanda – and you can see the difference.
The question we should be asking the former ZIFA bosses who employed him, Lincoln Mutasa and his team, is what did they really see in Nees’ CV to convince themselves that this was the right man to add value to the Warriors?
What did they see in a CV which showed that he had worked as a technical director in Japan, Kosovo and South Africa and Israel to convince them that this was the right man who could handle the challenges that come with being the head of an African national football team?
What did they see in a CV which showed that he has worked as head coach of the Seychelles and Rwanda national teams to convince them that this was the right man who could add value to the Warriors?
What did they see in a CV which shows that he coached the Israel and Kosovo Under-21 teams to convince them that this was the man we needed to change the fortunes of the Warriors?
This is a man who has never won even a championship with a Division Two side, let alone the Division One sides like N’ombeyaora and Agama and Premiership sides.
The SAFA leaders saw Hugo Broos’ CV and they rightly chose him as the Bafana Bafana coach.
The CV shows Broos won league titles with Club Brugge in ’92 and ’93, won the Belgian Cup in ’95 and ’96 and the Belgian Super Cup in ’91, ’92, ’94 and ’96.
He also won the Belgian league title with Anderlecht in 2004 and was voted Belgian Manager of the Year in ’92, ’96, 2004 and 2007.
He won the AFCON with Cameroon in 2017.
Now, that’s a proper CV for a coach who can be employed to add value to a national team and not this Mickey Mouse appointment of Nees which appears to have taken us a hundred steps backwards as a football nation.
To God Be The Glory
Peace to the GEPA Chief, the Big Fish, George Norton, Daily Service, Sitting Bull, Crazy Horse and all the Chakariboys still in the struggle.
Come on Warriors!!!!!!!!!!!!
Khamaldinhoooooooooooo!
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