Sacred goals, scientific misses: Inside Zimbabwe football’s tug of war with juju

Eddie Chikamhi

Zimpapers Sports Hub

JUST before kickoff at Rufaro Stadium, a strange silence sweeps over the terraces.

The clock reads 2.59pm. Dynamos players, desperate to break a stubborn winless streak, drop to their knees in a tight row near the City End goalpost, their backs to the crowd, eyes closed in a solemn ritual.

In the tense quiet, they chant, clap and invoke something unseen.

But just as referee Thanks Nyahuye prepares to start the match, Kwekwe United goalkeeper Lennon Gonese bolts down the field.

He is clutching three plastic water bottles.

The crowd watches, stunned. Gonese unscrews one, pours the contents onto the same spot where Dynamos had prayed, as if erasing whatever blessing had been summoned.

Then football.

The match ends 0-0.

Gonese, almost supernaturally alert, denies DeMbare time and again. No goals, no glory, just murmurs.

On the pitch, a duel of rituals. In the stands, a country divided between faith and fact.

Was it juju or just football?

In 2025, in a world of GPS trackers, performance data and artificial intelligence, Zimbabwean football is still caught between tradition and technology.

While global clubs invest in sports science, biomechanics and psychology, parts of the domestic game remain tethered to the supernatural, a legacy many players inherit and few openly question.

“It’s there even in the lower divisions and schools football,” confides a current Premier Soccer League (PSL) player. “But no one talks about it. You talk too much and you’re marked.”

The silence speaks volumes.

From lit candles in dressing rooms to feathers buried beneath goalposts, tales of players, coaches and even club executives seeking spiritual advantage are whispered behind locker room doors.

Some pour anointed water on opponents’ benches. Others sleep naked inside stadiums before big matches, while some spend nights at cemeteries.

Still others, it is said, go further, bribing sangomas for luck, strength or sabotage.

And sometimes, it seems to work, but not everyone is buying it.

In a fiery video that went viral recently, long-time Dynamos fan Innocent Mashingaidze launched a blistering attack on his beloved club, not for poor form, but for its apparent spiritual spending.

“US$126 000 on sangomas? For what? To win matches?” he questioned. “You don’t pay sangomas. You pay players. Football is scientific!”

His outrage struck a nerve.

In bars, WhatsApp groups and radio call-ins, fans debated: Is it superstition or strategy? Culture or con?

Clinton Matiza, a performance analyst and sports science lecturer at Zimbabwe Open University, knows both worlds.

He has worked with clubs in Zimbabwe and Tanzania, where juju, he says, is part of the daily football rhythm.

“In Africa, teams are results-oriented. So, they’ll do anything they believe might help,” Matiza says. “Even if it means sacrificing training time to see a spiritualist.”

But does it work?

“If juju worked,” he quips, “Africa would have five World Cups by now.”

Matiza argues that belief in superstition is not only scientifically baseless; it is a barrier to progress.

“In Europe, clubs track every meal, every sprint, every recovery. Here, some clubs still bury bones behind the goalposts,” he said.

Yet this tug of war is not just philosophical, it is institutional.

The PSL, according to spokesperson Kudzai Bare, has made its position clear: Superstition has no place in professional football.

“We are governed by rules and regulations. Any behaviour that goes against that, whether juju or anything else, is dealt with,” said Bare. “We’re focused on fostering a professional and safe football environment.”

Despite that, she admits the winds of change are blowing unevenly.

“Some clubs are investing in GPS tracking, performance analysis, digital scouting tools,” Bare says. “But resource gaps slow the uptake. Still, the direction is clear: We have to modernise.”

That shift is already visible in clubs like Ngezi Platinum Stars, Simba Bhora, Bulawayo Chiefs and Scottland, who are using sports science tools once seen only in European leagues.

Thulani Javas Sibanda, the new Bulawayo Chiefs CEO and former Scottland media head, is one of the country’s biggest advocates of the scientific revolution.

“Football isn’t going to be scientific in the future. It already is,” Sibanda says. “Today, you win games through numbers, through data, through preparation, not through bones and feathers.”

Sibanda’s former club was one of the first in Zimbabwe to adopt GPS tracking and video analysis.

“If you’re not tracking training load, injury risk, player fatigue, then what are you doing?” he asks.

Desmond Mhene, a performance analyst who has worked with both Dynamos and Nyasa Big Bullets in Malawi, says data is now football’s most valuable asset.

“Raw data is just the start,” Mhene says. “You need people who understand what to do with it, how to make sense of sprint maps, injury trends, recovery times.”

He helped Nyasa Big Bullets go on a five-year title-winning spree after embracing sports tech.

“The difference is day and night,” he says. “But Zimbabwean football is still tiptoeing into it.”

According to Mhene, real-time analytics can help coaches predict fatigue, adjust strategies mid-game and prevent injuries weeks in advance.

“But,” he adds, “none of that works if your budget is going to a sangoma.”

There is also the tech frontier: artificial intelligence (AI).

Nyasha Muchochomi of Kyros Sport, which recently inked a partnership with ZIFA, believes AI can close the gap between African football and global standards.

“These tools can suggest line-ups, predict tactical weaknesses, track player dips in form. You remove guesswork,” he says. “It empowers coaches to make decisions based on hard evidence, not hunches.”

But good tech is not cheap. The best applications cost between US$3 000 and US$12 000 per year, a heavy lift for clubs with shallow wallets.

Still, the trade-off is clear: Invest in innovation or risk being left behind.

And so Zimbabwean football stands at a crossroads.

One path is familiar: Ritual, intuition and belief. It is rooted in culture and tradition, and for many, it is hard to walk away from something that feels spiritually real, even if it is scientifically unfounded.

The other path is harder, more expensive and demands patience. But it is proven. It is measurable. It is the path that leads to better fitness, fewer injuries, stronger tactics and, eventually, more wins.

For a league that still sees water bottles used as spiritual neutralisers, the question is: How much longer can Zimbabwean football afford to bet on the unseen, while the world banks on science?