Online Reporter
Tinashe Mukono
Zimpapers Sports Hub
WHEN Dennis Dauda talks about football these days, there is a calmness in his voice that did not exist when he was chasing championships. Time has a way of changing sportspersons.
The game that once demanded everything from him now asks a different question. Not about trophies, individual awards or legacy. The question is simpler. What do you do when the spotlight moves on? For many Zimbabwean footballers, that moment arrives quietly. The crowds disappear. The headlines become someone else’s. The phone rings less often. The game that once revolved around you keeps moving without permission. Some walk away, but Dauda decided to stay.
That decision may end up defining him more than the Soccer Star of the Year award that made him a household name.
In 2014, Dauda stood at the centre of one of Zimbabwean football’s greatest near-misses. ZPC Kariba were not supposed to challenge for the championship.
They were outsiders in a league dominated by giants, yet week after week they refused to fade away.
Led by captain Tendai Hove in goal, Limited Chikafa in attack and the commanding presence of Dauda at the back, they pushed Dynamos all the way to the final day of the season. Only one point separated glory from heartbreak, but it was Dynamos that celebrated. ZPC Kariba were left wondering what might have been.
The title slipped away but Dauda walked away with Zimbabwean football’s highest individual honour. For many players, that would have become the defining chapter of their lives. Years later, Dauda found himself fighting a battle far removed from packed stadiums and championship races.
Tuberculosis threatened to take away the thing he loved most. Footballers are often judged by their strength, their fitness and their resilience. Yet illness does not care about reputation. It does not care about medals and yesterday’s achievements.
For a period, Dauda was forced into a struggle where survival mattered more than football. His comeback was celebrated by many who saw it as another victory. To him, it was something deeper.
It was perspective. Because, once you have faced the possibility of losing the game completely, your relationship with it changes.
The frustrations become smaller, the setbacks become easier to process, while the applause becomes less important.
Perhaps that explains why Dauda seems at peace with where football has taken him.
Last season he was part of a Kwekwe United side whose Premier Soccer League (PSL) dream unravelled painfully. Relegation was confirmed with six matches still remaining. For a player who once stood among the country’s elite, it would have been easy to see that chapter as humiliation.
Instead, Dauda treated it as another lesson. That ability to keep finding meaning in disappointment may be his greatest gift.
Yet Dauda speaks about football with the enthusiasm of a man who has discovered it all over again. At Mashonaland West Division 2A side One Step, he has become both player and coach, balancing two identities while preparing for life beyond his playing days.
Many great players struggle when the game begins asking them to lead instead of perform. Coaching demands patience and humility. It demands accepting that someone else’s success can become your greatest achievement. Dauda is learning that lesson in real time.
“This is my new passion — to guide emerging talent and still be part of Zimbabwe’s football story,” he says.
There is something revealing in that statement. He no longer talks about his own story, but about Zimbabwe’s football story.
The focus has shifted, the mission has changed and the game is no longer about what he can achieve.
It is about what he can leave behind. That is why he still follows the PSL closely.
Not as a former star reliving old memories, but as a student of the game.
When he talks about Dynamos defender Isaac Landu, there is genuine admiration rather than nostalgia.
He recognises qualities he once possessed. The timing, the authority and the confidence. But there is no bitterness in the comparison, only appreciation.
He wants to see defenders celebrated, new names emerge and the next generation to experience opportunities that football gave him. Zimbabwean football often celebrates talent and does not always celebrate stewardship. Yet every strong football culture depends on former players choosing to remain involved after the glory years have passed. The game survives because someone decides that mentoring matters and that knowledge should not die with retirement. Many supporters will remember him as the defender who nearly led ZPC Kariba to one of the greatest upsets in league history.
And, as Dauda continues his second act in the game, working far from the spotlight that once followed him everywhere, there is a growing sense that his greatest contribution to Zimbabwean football is still unfolding.
Not in front of thousands, but in front of the few young players watching closely, hoping to become the next Dennis Dauda.
The difference now is that he is helping them become something even better.
