adminLawrence Moyo in JOHANNESBURG, South Africa
ZIMBABWE international striker Knowledge Musona is sharply dividing opinion at South African glamour club, Kaizer Chiefs, and his return hasn’t been as rosy as widely expected. Musona is back at the club on loan from his Germany club, Hoffenheim, but has had a rough time in a league he dominated leading to his overseas move.
His failure to score has been blamed mainly on lack of match fitness, blamed on his failure to command a first XI jersey in Germany and thereby spending more time warming the bench.
Musona was back in the limelight on Saturday as Kaizer Chiefs hosted bitter rivals Orlando Pirates in a big MTN8 Soweto derby semi-final first leg tie.
Coach Stuart Baxter benched Musona, which many Zimbabwean analysts felt was a huge vote of no confidence in the Warriors’ talisman, and went for Lehlohonolo Majoro and Bernard Parker in the first half.
Majoro and Parker had a lifeless first 45 minutes and Baxter was forced to bring in Musona right at the start of the second half for the ineffective Majoro while Kingstone Nkhatha then came in for Parker for a Zimbabwean strikeforce for the last 20 minutes.
Chiefs were an improved team in the second half with Musona always in the thick of things.
But despite creating scoring chances, Musona failed to find the target.
This then divided opinion among Amakhosi followers.
Some blamed the coach for putting Musona on the bench yet he has a good record against Orlando Pirates adding that the missed chances were a result of his good vision.
Others blamed the striker of costing Chiefs the game by not scoring, arguing that the chances he spurned were easy to score.
Naturally the media decided to focus on the chances Musona missed and asked Baxter whether he is putting enough pressure on the Zimbabwean hitman to score goals.
Majoro and Parker are key players for Bafana Bafana and criticising them in the media affects the national team hence the decision to divert attention to Musona. And Baxter was being indirectly asked to publicly criticise Musona during the post-match interviews but he was honest enough and blamed the defeat on a disastrous first half in which he believes his charges panicked after an early goal by Daine Klate.
“With regards to Knowledge, he is getting better in training. He is working hard with his movement,” said Baxter.
“I don’t want to criticise him for the chances he missed today. I think he was working very well. I’m sure if he continues to do that these chances will go in.
“The moment I start talking about how long it will take him to score, I automatically put him under pressure and that’s unnecessary.
“I don’t think we have to wait that long for him to settle. I’m sure when he scores his first goal, it will be like tomato ketchup, with plenty coming out of the bottle all at once. We can look forward to him scoring goals in a natural way.”
Musona told the weekly Thursday Night Live With Robert Marawa magazine programme on SuperSport that he was confident he will be back in the goals soon.
He blamed his poor outing in Germany to being played way out of position as a winger.
But while Baxter was defending Musona, a retired referee was telling Kick Off that the striker deserved a red card for aiming an elbow at veteran Orlando Pirates captain, Lucky Lekgwathi, in the same game.
And to strengthen the view, we were reminded that the person making the claim was of repute — a 1998 World Cup Final assistant referee, Achmat Salie. There was also a visit to the archives as we were reminded that Musona is not yet off the hook as “in 2008, Gary Goldstone only got away with a yellow card when he elbowed Chiefs’ Tshepo Bulu, but after the PSL reviewed the incident he received a two-match ban and a R50 000 fine, of which R40 000 was suspended for 12 months.” In an interview with Kick Off, Salie said:
“That was a straight red card. You can’t do that and get away with it. Sometimes referees go into big matches with the mentality that they want to let the match flow without interrupting it; as a result they let fouls go unpunished.
“When opposition players see that they want to retaliate because they know nothing will happen and that can result in the match getting out of hand. “There were couple of tackles that were unpunished as well, like the one on Daine Klate. But otherwise the match was good, I enjoyed it.”
Online Reporter