adminbig stage, as a collection of fine footballers ready to shake the continent, and it’s not a coincidence, isn’t it, that the Warriors have not lost a game in these qualifiers with the Smiling Assassin in their team?The reality, which makes really tough reading if you are a Warriors’ fan and expecting something special from a day that promises so much but could deliver very little, is that no Group A team has won away from its backyard in 10 away matches that have been played in the 2012 Nations Cup qualifiers so far.
Break that down and you will find at least 900 minutes of football, which has been played by Zimbabwe, Mali, Cape Verde and Liberia, in foreign territory, since the start of the current qualifying campaign last year with none of the visiting teams managing a win.
Only two visiting teams, Zimbabwe in Liberia in the very first game of the qualifiers, and Cape Verde in Harare in that nightmarish game where the sum total of the madness of our administrators helped the Atlantic
Ocean islanders escape with a draw, have picked up a point in hostile enemy territory.
On six occasions, which adds up to at least 540 minutes, the visiting teams in Group A have failed to find the target with the Warriors firing blanks in Mali, the Malians firing blanks in Cape Verde, the Blue Sharks firing blanks in Harare, Bamako and Monrovia and Liberia also firing blanks at the National Sports Stadium.
Only four teams have scored away from home – Zimbabwe in Liberia, Mali in Zimbabwe and Liberia on their visits to Cape Verde and Mali – and that only on one occasion, when the Liberians scored twice in Praia
in a 2-4 losing cause, did a team score more than once away from home, hammers home the degree of challenges the teams have found on away assignments.
Cape Verde have proved a difficult team to beat on home soil, since the island decided to open its doors to invite those players, with links to that country, who were playing in Portugal and wanted to play international football but were certainly not good enough to feature for the Portuguese national team.
For a country that lost the likes of the brilliant Nani and Ronaldo to Portugal, Henrik Larsson to Sweden, Gelson Fernandes to Switzerland and a number of very good players who chose to play for European nations instead of Cape Verde, you probably feel they have a right to also go fishing for football talent elsewhere.
The formula has worked and Cape Verde are a stronger side now than they were six years ago when they could slump to a 0-4 defeat, at home in Praia, to Ghana’s Black Stars in a 2006 World Cup/Nations Cup qualifier.
They also lost 1-2, at home, to Bafana Bafana in that campaign and drew 1-1 with the DRC but in the 2008 Nations Cup qualifiers it was clear the Atlantic Ocean islanders had improved, especially in their backyard, as they only lost 0-1 at home to Guinea but drew 2-2 against Algeria and 0-0 against Gambia in Praia.
During the 2010 World Cup/Nations Cup qualifiers, Cape Verde lost 1-2 to Cameroon at home, beat Mauritius 3-1 and Tanzania 1-0 in their matches in Praia, and although they finished second in their group, after losing 0-2 in Cameroon, 1-3 in Tanzania and beating Mauritius 3-1 away, they were not good enough to qualify for the final round.
Since the 2006 World Cup/Nations Cup qualifiers, Cape Verde have played 11 home matches and have won five, drawn three and lost three – to Cameroon, South Africa and Ghana – have scored 15 goals in their backyard and conceded 14 goals.
The reality, which makes very tough reading for the Warriors’ fans expecting something special from a day that promises so much but could deliver very little, is that their boys are fighting tough odds in Praia this afternoon as they need to win their first away Nations Cup qualifier, in seven years, to stand any chance of qualifying for Equatorial Guinea and Gabon.
Not since defeating Rwanda 2-0, in Kigali on July 3, 2004, have the Warriors won a Nations Cup tie on foreign soil and Norman Mapeza’s Class of 2011, already labelled by some as the Golden Generation, will have to change all that for this campaign to end with a success story that will light smiles all over this country.
Ours is a dreadful away record, in the Nations Cup, and the win over Rwanda was followed by seven defeats, and just three draws – against Algeria, Guinea and Liberia – on the road, in the tournament.
But a victory in Cape Verde this evening might give the Warriors the automatic qualifying ticket from Group A, in the event Mali fail to win in Liberia, in a tough group where the Atlantic Ocean islanders, who are sitting in third place, can also qualify.
It’s not Mission Impossible but neither is it an easy task for Mapeza and his men who have to beat a home side, fancying its chances of also topping the group and qualifying for their first Nations Cup finals, should they beat the Warriors and results in Monrovia go their way with Mali falling.
It’s by clearing such hurdles, and passing such big tests, that Knowledge Musona and his crew can herald their arrival on the big stage, as a collection of fine footballers ready to shake the continent, and it’s not a coincidence, isn’t it, that the Warriors have not lost a game in these qualifiers with the Smiling Assassin in their team?
Some might say that it’s asking for too much, for a team that draws most of its inspiration from a group of players just out of their teenage heaven, and it’s unfair to expect the boys to suddenly become men in hostile enemy territory where everything will be going against them this evening.
But stripes have to be earned and, for this group, this is their chance. They should win and, even if that doesn’t bring them a ticket to the 2012 Nations Cup finals in the end, it will be priceless in terms of what they will win in the pride of representing their country well.
Inevitably, in the week leading to the countdown of today’s big match, a number of analysts have gone back to that dark day last year when our administrators conspired to weaken the Warriors through a diabolical GNU experiment of coaches in which Mapeza spent the whole week being frustrated by a system he wanted to serve.
That week when Tom Saintfiet (remember him?) was airlifted from his base in Windhoek, bundled into a taxi at Harare International Airport and given five days to prepare the Warriors for the match against Cape
Verde even though he didn’t have a work permit and, crucially, he still had a running contract with the Namibia Football Association.
That week when Madinda Ndlovu was announced as the head coach of the Warriors, even after all the challenges he had faced with the Under-17s who nose-dived to a 1-5 defeat in Gambia, after Saintfiet fell foul of the immigration rules and was ordered to leave.
That week when, on a Friday, just two days before the match against Cape Verde, it was announced that Mapeza would also be in charge and the two coaches would have the same authority, the first such arrangement in the history of our football, in the tie against the islanders.
Mapeza didn’t call that team, which now featured a number of veterans who had been overlooked by the coach when he took his squad to Liberia and emerged with a point, but in the end he was forced to work with what Saintfiet had called into the squad.
And so we drew against Cape Verde, somehow gifting the islanders their only point in away matches in the current qualifiers, and a number of analysts and commentators have spoken about the cost of those two points, which would have left us needing to win – without worrying about what was happening in Liberia – to qualify.
But I believe worrying about the past will not help us at this juncture because it only helps to divide us at a time when the magnitude of the mission that is before us right now badly needs our united front if we are to clear the tough hurdle.
Have a number of those commentators looked at the possibility that we could have beaten both Cape Verde at home and also won in Liberia, giving ourselves a three-point advantage over Mali as we go into today’s final matches, but still failed to top our group by failing to win this afternoon while the Malians win in Monrovia?
Yes, that would have meant both Mali and Zimbabwe finishing on 12 points but the Eagles would still have topped the group by virtue of the fact that, on our head-to-head clashes, the Malians have an away goal, which they scored at Rufaro, which will give them an advantage even though our goal difference would be the same.
Either way we would have needed a result in Cape Verde today, even if we had won in Liberia and against the islanders in Harare, to be absolutely sure and while a draw would have been enough – in the event of having harvested those four points – we all know how difficult it is to play for such a result.
Either way, when you look at it deeply, we would still have needed a helping hand from Liberia, for them to prevent Mali from winning in Monrovia today, even if we had won against Cape Verde here and won in Liberia.
Great teams have been known by the way they respond in times of adversity and, if we are really a good team in the making, we should complete the recovery mission that we started with that win against Mali, the passion that fired us across the line even when all hope looked lost in the closing minutes and the belief that convinced all of us that Musona could convert that penalty at the second time of asking.
Poor teams spend all their lives taking about lost opportunities while good teams use adversity to strengthen themselves and are always looking at the next challenge to make up for any point or points that might have been lost in the previous game or games.
When Spain lost 0-4 to Portugal in a friendly international, the world champions didn’t let that result destroy the confidence that helped them rule the globe but they decided to use it as a wake-up call that they were not invincible and, crucially, decided to work harder on their project.
When we faced the challenge of crashing out, in the event that we failed to win against Mali, we refused to be pushed into submission even when the clock showed that 90 minutes of regulation time we up and Ovidy Karuru skipped into the penalty area, was fouled and we won the game and survived to live another day.
When we faced the challenge of crashing out, in the event that we failed to win against Liberia, we refused to die and by the end of the contest, even though we barely moved into second gear, we were comfortable 3-0 winners.
That’s the spirit needed today, not worrying about what might have been had we won against Cape Verde at home.
Millions of Zimbabweans will certainly be disappointed if the Warriors fail in their Mission to qualify for the 2012 Nations Cup finals because they really believe there is a special team in this group of players and, given more time, one can only imagine the possibilities.
These people believe, given a chance to showcase their talents at the 2012 Nations Cup finals, Knowledge Musona, Ovidy Karuru, Khama Billiat and company can really write a Cinderella story that will not only warm their hearts but bring back the sunny side of a game whose soul has been battered by all these match-fixing allegations.
You could feel the excitement levels rising in Harare all week and it’s clear this is a city that believes something good could come out of Cape Verde today and the Warriors could be back again for a dance among the heavyweights of African football.
But there is also a possibility, in this game, that it might not all go according to our expectations and we could win today and it could still count for nothing, in terms of qualification, with Mali also doing the same in Liberia.
Or, we could fail to win.
You can imagine the pain, across the entire nation, in the event that tragedy unfolds, and you can feel for Cuthbert Dube who sacrificed so much for this cause and has been charmed, of late, by the team’s good results.
But how will we respond in the event of failure will be as key as how we will respond, as a nation, in the event of success.
As is usually the case in Zimbabwean football, the knives will be out for the coach, himself not a very popular man on a Zifa board that once voted 9-2 in favour of Madinda to be in charge and for Norman to be the assistant, and he could be possibly sacrificed.
It won’t really matter to the hangmen, and they are many of them, that this is a project in progress and, with the 2013 Nations Cup qualifiers, for those teams who fail to make it to Equatorial Guinea and Gabon, only starting in January next year, we will have two months to look for another coach and get him to start again with this team.
Poor us!
Knives will be out for the captain and there will be many who will question how we ever thought we could qualify being led by a man who was fingered as an actor in the Asiagate scandal, something that he dismisses as not true.
Suddenly, and probably conveniently too, it will be forgotten that Method Mwanjali was the leader of this team when they beat Mali, when they thrashed Liberia, when they picked that point in Monrovia and even Mamelodi Sundowns saw his leadership qualities and made him skipper even at the height of all the allegations against him.
Knives will be out for me, as is usually the case when something bad happens in our football, and they will say he is the guy who pushed the agenda for Norman to be coach and suddenly, and probably conveniently too, they will erase whatever good things Mapeza did from their memory bank.
I believe when you are in a certain position, and you have certain influence, you have to swallow the bad, as and when it comes, and you also don’t need to worry when you not acknowledged as and when you give a little contribution that helps the game.
Given our history as a nation, you can dread the morning after, in the event that we don’t make it in Cape Verde.
But we will simply be shooting ourselves in the foot because there is more to gain, in investing in the building of this team, than in tearing it apart in the event that we don’t make it.
We need to ensure that we still make Knowledge Musona feel special, even if he fails to score today, so that he can build on his confidence for the future and we need to tell Khama that there will certainly be better times for him in international football and he shouldn’t lose heart at the age of 21.
We need to make Ovidy feel we appreciate all that he did, including putting his career on the line by coming early from injury to play for his country in today’s game, and even if it happens that it doesn’t bring us the ticket to Gabon and Equatorial Guinea, we should make him even hungrier to succeed the next time he wears that shirt.
As they say in Polokwane, Lidoda Duvha – “Our Day Shall Come.”
That day could be today.
Castle Lager Premiership Continues
Oh, by the way, the domestic Premiership rumbles on this weekend and this is one lot of fixtures that the PSL could have done without because the unnecessary controversy that it has generated, especially at this late stage of the season, has the danger of overshadowing what has been a compelling race.
Yes, rules are rules and if they say only a team with three players can force the abandonment of a game, then they should be followed.
But rules are guidelines and, just like a referee handling a fiery derby showdown, most of the things have to be managed.
There is no point for Dynamos to pay a big price for supplying players to a national cause and there is no point for Motor Action to play a tricky game without their coach simply because he is good enough to be the Warriors’ assistant coach.
There is no rule that says the entire PSL programme has to be suspended, to make way for the BancABC Sup8r Cup final, but the league’s leadership do it because they are managing something for good sponsors who have been there for them and you don’t want a counter-attraction for such good people.
That’s what should have happened in this case.
Why should Joey Antipas worry about what is happening at Motor Action when he is on national duty? Why should Malajila and Arubi also worry about the effect of their absence at DeMbare when they are on national duty?
Come on Warriorssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss!
Khamaldinhoooooooooooooooooooooo
oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!
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