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Robson Sharuko Senior Sports Editor
WHY is 53-year-old Kazuyoshi “King Kazu’’ Miura being celebrated as a global football hero for defying age, while 48-year-old Innocent Benza is demonised as a hopeless pensioner making a mockery of the domestic Premiership?
Is it because King Kazu is Japanese, and age there is nothing but a number, while Benza is a Zimbabwean where one is not supposed to push the boundaries, when it comes to playing football in the top-flight league?
Or, is it because Benza is black and, as such, he has no business trying to reinvent the wheel and keep playing in the domestic Premiership?
Why is it that when 75-year-old Egyptian, Ezzeldin Bahader, bids to become the world’s oldest football player, he is celebrated for refusing to be bullied by age?
Yet Benza is dismissed as a joke who is an insult to the domestic Premiership?
The Egyptian even scored, converting a penalty in his first match for third-tier league side, October 6, in a 1-1 draw against Genius earlier this year.
Bahader, who is a father of four and grandfather of six, received positive media coverage around the world, after scoring from the spot, as he moved closer to a place in the Guinness Book of Records.
“I became the oldest professional footballer scoring a goal in an official game,” Bahader told reporters afterwards.
Although he was carrying a knee injury, Bahader played the full 90 minutes, as part of his campaign to beat the record set by Isaak Hayik, who was the goalkeeper for lower league Israeli side Ironi Or Yehuda, at the age of 73, last year.
Six years ago, Cameroon football legend, Roger Milla, lost his record as the oldest footballer to represent an African national football team when 43-year-old Kersley Appou featured for Mauritius in an AFCON qualifier.
Appou was 43 years and 354 days old when he featured for Mauritius in that qualifier.
Milla was 42 years and 39 days when he featured in the Indomitable Lions’ 1-6 thrashing at the hands of Russia at the ’94 World Cup finals in the United States.
That Cameroon side had qualified for the global showcase, after edging the Warriors 3-1, in a controversial winner-take-all qualifier in Yaounde.
A few weeks ago, 2012 AFCON winner, 40-year-old striker, James Chamanga, defied age as he won the Golden Boot award, after scoring 16 goals, in the just-ended Zambian Super League season.
Chamanga, who once retired in China, when he was appointed his club’s technical director, before returning home to Zambia to resume his playing career, has since extended his stay at Lusaka side Red Arrows.
This means Chamanga will still be leading the Red Arrows attack by the time he turns 42 on February 2, next year.
Chamanga’s exploits appear to have inspired another veteran, Siyabonga Nomvethe, who turns 43 in December, to come out of retirement.
The former Bafana Bafana star said he believed he still had a lot to offer to the game.
“When you are sitting at home you end up thinking too much. When Uthongathi wanted me, I even said, “guys, let’s wait because I’m waiting for a job at AmaZulu, but it didn’t come,’’ he told SAFM.
“I hear people say I’m out of money and that’s why I’m coming back but that’s not the case, I have a house in Umhlanga, and I have another one in Joburg (Johannesburg). I actually drive a Tazz even though I have a Golf 6.
“I can buy an expensive car but that’s not important to me — what’s important is to look after my family, my wife and pay school fees.
“I want to play until I’m 45 and if I feel good then I will play until I’m 50.”
At the weekend, King Kazu’s incredible story, which has seen him playing 35 seasons in professional football, getting 89 caps for his country, scoring 55 goals for Japan, playing in four continents and scoring 163 goals in the J-League, was back in the global headlines.
He is the first 50-year-old to score in the Japanese top-flight league and has been at Yokohama FC for the last 15 years.
“The second round of the Japanese League Cup is not normally international news. But when top-division side Yokohama FC played Sagan Tosu last month, it made headlines around the world,’’ the BBC Sport reported at the weekend.
“Why?
“Because the Yokohama captain, Kazuyoshi Miura, was 53 years old.
“Miura’s never-ending career fascinates football fans around the world. His contract extensions are reported by the BBC and CNN. He holds the Guinness record for “world’s oldest goalscorer.”
“Even his inclusion in the FIFA 20 computer game — after first appearing in it 24 years ago — made headlines.
“In 2005 — aged 38 — Miura signed for his current club, Yokohama FC, in the Japanese second division. He became a key player, playing 39 times as the team won promotion to the top division in 2006.
“Miura rarely gets injured (except when running into Franco Baresi) and is renowned for his fitness regime. And, as well as his fitness, there’s another reason for Miura’s ultra-long career — his popularity.’’
Such is his popularity that when fans know he is playing, even though he is now 53, there have been a marked increase in the attendance figures for Yokohama compared to when he isn’t in the team.
“If they know he’s playing, an extra 3 000 or 4 000 people turn up,” says Gibson — and encourages a number of sponsors,’’ the editor of J Soccer magazine, Alan Gibson, told the BBC.
While Miura is back enjoying positive coverage, around the world, the same cannot be said about Benza who has been ridiculed for making a mockery of the domestic standards of the Premiership by playing at the age of 48.
Two years ago, he made history when he became the oldest player to score in the local top-fight league.
He has since scored three times during his flirtation with the domestic Premiership.
“I am feeling fitter than I was when I started playing football in the top-flight about two years ago,” he said.
‘’I have always said, age is nothing but, just a number. I feel my feet still have the strength and energy to carry me on.
“I don’t want to lie. I am still feeling very fit and I don’t see myself hanging my boots anytime soon.”
Online Reporter