Phillip Zulu in LEEDS, England
IT was really sad to witness Scottland head coach Norman Mapeza leaving the club after failing to progress in the African Club Champions League fixture against Petro Athletic of Angola.
This defeat was a turning point in the interests of Scottland’s ambitions in Africa.
Mapeza had faced serious challenges with the majority of the club fan-base, who felt there was no return to the huge investment poured into the project.
Strange enough, the most disturbing thing about Scottland’s dismal failure is that the blame has been laid squarely on their head coach.
But when one considers that their trip to Luanda was a long stretch from Harare to Ethiopia (Addis Ababa then to Luanda), whilst their fans were chartered in a plane from Harare straight to Luanda; that is a huge anomaly in football planning and logistics.
As if Mapeza had suddenly lost the understanding of how football works, we are also being told that many of the players that were brought as “investment” didn’t come from his preferred targets, the situation was possibly a double dipping process of some executives and the coach.
My take on this situation is that Mapeza was caught between a rock and a hard place.
He was simply a pawn on the bigger scale of things. Scott Sakupwanya’s passion for the game, and his club is undoubtedly popular in the local league, but it seems Scottland have attracted too many “cooks in the kitchen” who could spoil the broth.
I am not sure whether Mapeza could have survived such a gathering of too many cooks; given the fact that he is a known professional who thrives on a guided approach towards talent player identification, thus proving to be the spark of conflict since the official day of his contractual agreement in accepting this coaching job.
I do understand Mapeza’s shortcomings from a coaching perspective, and I also have some veiled criticism of some of the things he should have done better for the club and Zimbabwean football at large.
But this marriage was a difficult one from the start and both parties missed a good opportunity to create a thriving spectacle of using local emerging talents from our junior football development grassroots as we all witnessed the demise of Tadiwa Chakuchichi and many others.
Adieus Nomara, keep your head UP!
The technical changes at Scottland that have suddenly ejected legend Peter Ndlovu from the team management cockpit into the dugout is more than welcome and a huge chance to witness how our former national team captain will handle the affairs of an overly ambitious club that is attracting the attention of every cook out there.
I am highly positive and convinced that Peter will perfectly understand the minimum expectations of what’s needed at that level and beyond as his pedigree in top-flight professional football says it all.
The big question to some is: Can Peter Ndlovu turn things around at Scottland? YES, HE CAN.
Let us all encourage him to get the full confidence of the fans, the executive, Hon Scott, and the wider structures of our national development programs so that our wishes of witnessing genuine transformation of our local game becomes realistic and successful. It’s not a competition between outgoing coach Norman and the new incoming coach Peter, but the greatest lessons should be learned from how Scottland ended up having far too many players on their training ground that Norman probably had not asked for.
I believe that Peter carries a big responsibility to turn things around because of his exploits in the EPL as the first African professional player to be signed straight from a local in Africa and make history of scoring a hattrick at Anfield.
Peter should never be terrified by this sudden change of roles, but he should be highly motivated by the fact fellow ex-national team captain Benjani Mwaruwari has been a revelation at Highlanders (his former club where he started as a junior).
If Benji could do it, then Peter should strive to equate the minimum benchmark of what Benjie has done. Well done Scott Sakupwanya and the executive for being proactive in allowing Ndlovu to calm the waters after the painful defeat in Angola.
* Phillip Zulu is a UK-based Zimbabwean football coach who specialises in Futsal. He writes in his personal capacity.
