Chronicle Editor
Sikhumbuzo Moyo, Senior Sports Reporter
A NATIONAL team player must be selected on merit, based on their form, and no other template should be used.
Zimbabwe football fans continue to agonise every time the senior national team is selected.
No explanation is ever given why certain players seem to be on the permanent call-up list, regardless of their form or whether or not they’re getting any game time at their respective clubs, or worse still unattached.
For example, goalkeeper Donovan Bernard previously got national team call-ups despite being a substitute goalie at his then club How Mine.
One wonders how then How Mine keeper Munyaradzi Diya felt being first choice for his team, but not good enough for the national team, while his understudy always made it.
Lately there is Ovidy Karuru, who seems to be the first name on the Warriors’ list.
Karuru is unattached and even when he was still in the books of Black Leopards, he struggled for game time and the South African Premier Soccer League side let him go at the end of last season because he was not giving them any value.
Despite him failing to hold down a starting place in the SuperSport team and failing to secure a deal he desires with any club, he is almost always guaranteed a starting place for the Warriors in their World Cup qualifier against South Africa at the National Sports Stadium on Friday.
We asked some former national team coaches how they selected players during their tenures and they indicated that a national team gaffer must always be in constant communication with club coaches to get updates on players.
They said the coach must not work in a vacuum.
“Current form, checking or talking to their coaches for more information is what a national team coach should do before he calls up his squad. These days we are seeing players being called up simply because they are based outside the country. Some are even clubless and we are left wondering how such players continue representing us,” said one of the coaches, who has also played for the Warriors.
He said wearing the national team jersey was an honour and players must wear it on merit not because they are connected to some influential people.
“Players must fight to represent the country. It’s so disheartening as a player when you see someone not playing at club level being called up for national duty,” he said.
Another former Warriors’ player and coach said the emergence of player intermediaries in the country has had a negative impact on the national team.
“These intermediaries are in business; they don’t care whether our national football develops or not. They will go out of their way to make sure their players are called up to the national team and get marketed. During our days, only those that were commanding jerseys at club level were called up and when I became a national team coach, I applied the same principle. An explanation must be sought on why inactive players are called. The coaches must justify why player so and so is in the team and those reasons must be strong, not what we were told about Karuru,” he said.
Warriors’ head coach Zdvarko Logarusic recently explained that Karuru’s selection was to give him game time to help him attract a club.
Online Reporter