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Tadious Manyepo Sports Reporter
BRIAN Muza’s mind is spinning. Wandering everywhere and nowhere. He is trying to handle it all.
Happiness, reflections, struggles…
The 26-year-old Chicken Inn forward is seated amongst the Castle Lager Premiership’s crème de la crème at the 2022 Soccer Stars banquet.
The glittering ceremony has been put together by the domestic game’s all-weather friend Delta Beverages to exclusively celebrate and reward excellence in the 2022 season. Muza is amongst the 11 soccer star finalists to be honoured this night.
Perhaps he is the most surprising pick in this company.
Not that Muza isn’t a good player. In hindsight, he could be the most deserving candidate for the big one. He has been, in most aspects of the game, better than Walter Musona of FC Platinum who would win the top gong.
Musona has scored a couple of penalties, awarded in outrageously controversial circumstances, to help the Zvishavane team to their fourth league title in a row.
He has had a somewhat subdued first half of the season. But a decent second stanza in the marathon is what the selectors have settled for.
Even Musona’s closest rival for the top prize, CAPS United’s William Manondo hasn’t had a blistering season as it would appear.
He has scored 17 goals, the most by any player in the league and those goals have helped the Green Machine survive relegation in a season they have struggled to look like a football team.
Manondo cannot dribble, cannot run with the ball and basically he cannot play. But there is no doubting his scoring instinct and for that, he is selected as the second best.
One cannot blame the selectors after a season underlined with average individual performances though.
And Muza has every reason to celebrate being part of the most outstanding 11 players in the league.
He started the season as a nobody until Chicken Inn, who would finish second in the league, began to rely on him for success.
“I cannot believe that I have been selected as one of the best players on land for the year 2022. This has been my debut Premiership season and to then make it on the soccer stars’ calendar is something incredible. I am feeling very happy.
“This is every player’s dream. I am happy to have made it in my first season in the top-flight,” said Muza then.
All the 11 players including Frank Makarati, Elie Ilunga, Tino Benza, Wallace Magalane, Nelson Chadya, Gift Bello, Divine Mhindirira, Delic Murimba, Musona and Manondo are over the moon.
Muza cannot describe the feeling enough. He could be the happiest out of the lot.
But he is probably not as happy as Innocent Sibanda, a former taxi driver in Maranda, Mwenezi.
Without this man, perhaps Muza could have, as is mostly the case with talented rural footballers, pursued other ventures like farming.
It is Sibanda, a man known in the Maranda neighbourhood as a former taxi driver with a passion for the general development of his community, who hand-held Muza to where he is now.
He was also close friends with Muza’s father Lovemore who passed on when the talented footballer was barely 10 years old.
Of course Muza, though orphaned at a tender age, evaded most of the challenges faced by rural boys, thanks to his football talent.
Although his grandmother whom he stayed with struggled to raise tuition for his primary education at Rushumbe Primary School, Muza would attend Mwenezi High and Nikita High Schools on football scholarships.
Muza would, just like other rural boys, hop from one amateur team to the other until he joined Maranda FC in the second division.
However, he didn’t have decent football boots and was rarely noticeable. In fact, he failed to make the grade when Maranda FC won promotion into the first division.
It was at this point that Sibanda decided to jump in.
“I was a taxi driver in the Maranda area. It’s not like I had everything, no. I was an average villager dweller but I knew fully that Brian was a talented young boy.
“Obviously, he was bound to leave the game because he was lacking the necessities. I challenged myself to step up and afford him at least a chance to be noticed,” said Sibanda.
“After all, I used to be very close to Brian’s father before his death. In a way, I felt obliged to help him out. Noticing that he was in dire straits, I decided to buy him training kits including football boots from my meagre earnings”.
Sibanda did not only buy Muza the training kits.
He also begged his brother Elvis to accommodate Muza in his Bulawayo house while the footballer would be looking for teams to play for in the city.
“One thing I am sure of even up to now is that once a footballer starts wandering in the rural areas, their hopes of making it big will fade away.
“I decided to talk to my brother Elvis in Bulawayo to accommodate Brian. Fortunately, Elvis agreed and that was it”.
After moving to Bulawayo in 2017 with the help of Sibanda, Muza joined Cazymyn in the first division before he switched to CIWU in the same tier.
“Things were very hard given I was someone right from the rural areas. I was raw but determined. So I was always looking for opportunities to make it in the professional games,” said Muza.
“I faced so many hurdles in trying to prove my mettle as a player. Coaches were not exactly impressed once I mentioned that I was from the rural areas. I had to work extra hard to prove myself.
“From CIWU, I then switched to Talen Vision in 2019. That was the first time I received a sign-on fee in my football career that started at Maranda in Mwenezi in the second division”.
Muza repaid Talen Vision’s faith in him by scoring 14 goals in the 2019 season.
Chicken Inn coach Joey “Mafero” Antipas was already following Muza’s progress. And in 2020, he signed him at the 2015 league champions.
“In 2020, there was no football. I only started playing for Chicken Inn in 2021 during the Chibuku Super Cup and I scored three goals.
“Then last year, I scored 10 league goals and made it to the soccer stars’ calendar. We finished second behind FC Platinum. My hero remains Sibanda who made it possible for me to travel all the way to Bulawayo from Mwenezi. I would also like to thank Elvis Sibanda who ensured that I always had a roof over my head while I was looking for a team to play for.
“I learnt a lot from these guys’ kindness. Of course a lot has changed in my life but if there are people that I dedicate my success to then it should be the Sibandas.”
Back in Mwenezi, Innocent Sibanda is no longer driving a taxi.
He is now more into farming. But he is always where football is played. He wants to scout another Brian Muza.
After all, he has the trust of the whole community after Muza’s successful gamble.
Online Reporter