Sweswe pursues writing during lockdown

Sikhumbuzo Moyo, Senior Sports Reporter
IT took an unfortunate worldwide pandemic that jammed all sporting activities for FC Platinum assistant coach Lizwe Sweswe to discover his hidden talent of writing after becoming a columnist for football magazine, the Zimbabwe Foreign Legion (ZFL).

The two-time championship winning coach with Tsholotsho FC in Division One and FC Platinum in the Premiership, chose the Covid-19 lockdown period to write about the famous Tiki taka style of play originated by Barcelona legend Juan Cyruff and perfected by his successors Louis Van Gaal, Frank Rijkaard and Pep Guardiola.

“As I write, our beautiful land of Zimbabwe is under lockdown due to the coronavirus pandemic. We all have to play our part to keep our minds occupied and stress free,” wrote Sweswe introducing his column.

He said Tiki taka is a Spanish word for touch-touch.

“In football it means touching the ball and passing it to your teammate as early and as fast as you can. Emphasis is on short, smart passes and too much movement of the players. The calibre of players for this sort of style must be those with high confidence on the ball and moving it around. Your players must be technically good with the ball because its perfection needs more of ball familiarity,” wrote Sweswe.

According to the column, the advantages of the Tiki taka style of football is when your team does it correctly and perfectly, it forces your opponents to do a lot of ball chasing and in the process lose tactical shape and they become psychologically intimidated.

“Remember the primary purpose should be to open up spaces with the aim of attacking going forward. Football must be an entertaining sport, most coaches are going this direction because they want to entertain the fans as well as win in style. As a professional coach I also believe in that type of football, I want my players to entertain purposefully,” said Sweswe.

He said coaches must remain cognisant of the fact that football was now more scientific than in previous periods hence the need to keep on attending refresher courses for them to contine making the right decisions at the right time.

“We will be back to football action soon so stay safe and stay Covid-19 free,” he said.