adminSHORTLY after Orlando Pirates came agonisingly short, in their brave and drama-filled journey to try and win the African Champions League title last year, a South African blogger, Jeff Moloi, penned a very interesting article on the website of television news channel eNCA.
The headline, ‘Pirates Remind Africa That South Africa Can Play A Bit’, is what quickly captured your attention and provided an immediate reminder that this was an article that was unapologetic in its praise of the Buccaneers’ success in the Champions League.
Moloi captures the petty in-house fights, and the inevitable bragging rights of some of the Pirates’ fans, as their team marches on to the Champions League final and quotes some saying: “This is Pirates, not Bafana Bafana, go back to your teams.”
He meets some “nervous Kaizer Chiefs fans hoping the Bucaneers don’t get to do it again, before Amakhosi even tasted their first Cup final,” who tell him that “we’ll never get a peace of mind if they do.”
Then, after having looked at the smaller pictures, restricted to the boundaries that divide us into fans of this and that team, he takes his journey into the bigger picture and expertly captures the significance, from a national viewpoint, of Pirates’ impressive adventure.
“But for the less extremist fans of both clubs, as well as the rest of patriotic South Africans, not necessarily fans of the beautiful game, it was a thrill to have something to look forward to every other weekend,” Moloi writes.
“The depressing backdrop of Pirates’ magnificent performance is the rather dismal display by South African teams on the continent over the last decade.
“Pirates under (Roger) de Sa, their former goalkeeper, have returned to the basics of the South African game. Patient build-ups, short passes, possession. Crosses seem to be banned, unless they’re so precise that there’s certainty that they’ll find a head in a black jersey.
“A series of strategic draws got them this far. Their last win was amazingly back on August 17 against Zamalek. Fans eished and awwwed as chance after chance went begging. But then again goal scoring is a South African problem, and sadly, we have not even started treating this disease, until our juniors start playing competitively under qualified coaches.
“Yet, with all the imperfections, the lack of goals, composure, South African football being unaccustomed to the big African stage, THE BUCCANEERS MADE US ALL HOPE.
“They showed us glimpses from a distant past, when we expected results from a South African soccer team facing tough opposition from any corner of Africa.
“PIRATES ARE NOT BAFANA BAFANA BUT, WITH KAIZER CHIEFS TAKING THE BATON, GETTING READY FOR CAF CHAMPIONS LEAGUE 2014 (IN A YEAR OF A WORLD CUP FOR WHICH WE HAVEN’T QUALIFIED), YOU KIND OF EXPECT THAT THEY, TOO, WILL BE OUT TO PROVE THAT SOUTH AFRICAN CAN PLAY A BIT, WE’RE NOT GOOD AT JUST HOSTING BIG EVENTS.”
In the countdown to that Champions League final, the Sowetan newspaper had captured an unlikely voice, feisty Kaizer Chiefs’ General Manager, Bobby Motaung, singing in the corner of the Buccaneers, his team’s ultimate rival.
“Like all the other South Africans, as Chiefs we are all happy with Pirates’ success in the African Champions League”, said Motaung.
Last week, when it was Chiefs’ turn to play in the Champions League, with SuperSport United plunging into the Confederation Cup, the chief executive of the South African Premier Soccer League, Brand de Villiers, said something that was also interesting.
“This weekend is very important not only for Kaizer Chiefs and SuperSport United but for the Premier Soccer League. The two clubs do not just represent their badge but they carry the South African flag and the hopes of the entire country,” he said.
Maybe Mzansi Is Too Close
For Comfort
Just two months ago, Raja Casablanca wrote a fairy-tale when they reached the final of the Fifa Club World Cup in Morocco, despite only coming in as hosts, after beating the highly-rated Atletico Mineiro of Brazil, whose players included a certain Ronaldinho, in the semi-finals.
Raja’s incredible journey made such a massive impact, throughout Morocco, that King Mohammed VI personally called the team’s coach, Faouzi Benzarti, to tell him that the royal family, and the entire nation, were grateful for the way his team had put the country on the world map, with their exploits on the football pitch, and flown the flag with pride.
“I’m very honoured by the call of His Majesty the King,” Benzarti told journalists. “This is the greatest honour of all my sporting career. I am very grateful to His Majesty, may God preserve him.”
James Young, who covers football for ESPN, was in Morocco for that Fifa Club World Club and, on the day of the final match between Raja and Bayern Munich, found out that the exploits of the Moroccan team had brought the entire city of Marrakech to a standstill.
Stuck in the traffic, on his way to the match, he asks his taxi driver, “Why is the traffic so bad?” and gets the reply: “They’ve closed all the roads so the King can get to the game.”
And, when Young arrives at the stadium, he chats with one of the thousands of fans trying to squeeze their way into the stadium and, when he asks him about his feelings on the big match, his reply is very telling.
“I’ve never been so nervous in my life,” the Moroccan football fan says. “It’s the biggest game I can remember. AND NOT FOR MOROCCO, BUT FOR ALL ARAB COUNTRIES. My cousin in Saudi Arabia says everybody there is watching it too.”
Abdes, a club member, tells ESPN that, in Morocco, only Raja could make history quite like this.
“It’s wrong to think that Raja are a little team. We’re not. We’re the biggest team in Morocco, the only team that could bring the whole country together. We get crowds of 30,000 or 50,000 every game. It doesn’t matter who we’re playing.”
Revisiting Ranga Mberi’s Note To Sports Journalists
Ranga Mberi is a respected journalist who branched into the corporate sector and found a home at Econet Wireless where he handles the communication that comes from the blue-chip firm that has made a huge mark on the local market. Ranga is also on social media, which is something one expects given his line of duty, and has a keen interest in sport in this country, especially football, although I’m not really sure about the identity of his favourite local team.
Last week, Ranga posted a message on his Facebook page for the country’s sportswriters, which was pregnant with emotion, in the build-up to Dynamos’ return to the Champions League with their adventure on the continent starting with a home tie against Mochudi Centre Chiefs of Botswana.
Dear Sportswriters
Enough already with this “Zimbabwe’s representatives in the Champions League” drivel. When Dynamos play in the CL, they represent DeMbare fans, and DeMbare fans alone.
What, you expect Liverpool fans to support Man Utd in the Champions League now? Dortmund fans to root for Bayern against Arsenal? Honestly, chaps, it’s silly. Stop.
I thank you.
I ran Ranga’s post on this blog last week and it generated a lot of interest and some felt he was absolutely right, and you can understand their argument, while others said he was hopelessly out of line and his comments were divisive.
The disappointing thing, about the responses, is that I didn’t receive even one from the sportswriters, the people that Ranga was reaching out to in his public letter, for them to address the substance in the contents, if any, or question the shortcomings, if any, they felt were contained in that correspondence.
But I felt Ranga touched a number of important points and it was crucial that we address his letter because we are a newspaper that has been consistent in referring to Dynamos, when they play in the Champions League, as Zimbabwe’s representatives, the identity we also give to any team that flies our flag in the continental inter-club tournaments.
There is merit in Ranga’s argument that Dynamos are playing for themselves in the Champions League, the rewards, if they can get them, will go into their coffers and won’t be shared by all the 16 PSL clubs, the trophy, if they can win it, will go into their cabinet and won’t be rotated around the offices of all the top-flight clubs.
In the event they win the Champions League and qualify for the Fifa Club World Cup all those rich earnings, US$5 million for winning, US$4 million for coming second, like Raja, US$2.5 million for coming third, US$2 million for coming fourth, will go into their coffers and nothing will go into the pockets of CAPS United, Highlanders or Harare City.
DeMbare are playing for their constituency, to cheer the spirits of their fans when they win, as was the case last Sunday at the National Sports Stadium, to boost the profile of their brand on the continent and around the world, in the event of success, as was the case in 2008 when, after defying the odds and an economic turmoil back at home, they somehow marched on to reach the semi-finals of the Champions League.
When Orlando Pirates gloat about their triumph in the Champions League in 1995, they reflect on their club’s Finest Hour, not South African club football’s greatest moment and they have every right to feel that way because, in that historic adventure across the continent, they walked alone and, in that final game in Abidjan against ASEC Mimosas, they battled alone.
When Dynamos talk about their journey in 1998, which took them to the final of the Champions League, they reflect on their Finest Hour, not Zimbabwean club football’s greatest moment and they have every right to feel that way because, in that historic adventure across the continent, they walked alone and, in that final game against ASEC Mimosas, they battled alone. Ranga is right because when we revisit the winners of the African Champions League, we talk about Pirates, Raja, Al Ahly, these are names of clubs, never names of countries.
Why We Are Right To Call Them Zimbabwe’s Representatives
Six years ago, when Dynamos reached the semi-finals of the Champions League, their successful adventure on the continent, against the depressing background of the economic challenges that were wrecking havoc in the country, caught the imagination of the world. The Guardian, one of the leading newspapers in Britain, famously declared that Dynamos’ march into the semi-finals of the Champions League was world football’s greatest success story of the year.
“Everything is relative. In Zimbabwe, Dynamos FC are nicknamed the Glamour Boys because they’re the country’s most popular club,” Paul Doyle wrote in The Guardian on September 26, 2008.
“But in the wider world of African, let alone global football, that sobriquet could easily be seen as sarcastic. For financially Dynamos are in dire straits even though they can sell out their 45 000-capacity stadium, where at the start of this season the cheapest tickets cost . . . one hundred million dollars.
“Now here’s the story of the greatest football achievement of the season. It’s a story without an end as yet, but if what’s happened so far is anything to go by it will culminate with Dynamos being crowned the most unlikely continental champions ever.”
At a time when the bulk of the stories about Zimbabwe in the British newspapers were pregnant with negativity, here was one of their leading papers, finding something positive about this country, thanks to the exploits of Dynamos in the Champions League.
Where, in Moloi’s analysis on eNCA, Orlando Pirates had proved, through their journey to final of the Champions League, that South Africans can also play football a bit, Dynamos had, in The Guardian’s analysis, shown the world the other beautiful side of Zimbabwe through their march to the semi-finals of the Champions League in 2008.
DeMbare’s success didn’t go unnoticed and played a big part in pushing our ranking, used by Caf for its inter-club tournaments, up and, soon, we were rewarded with an extra slot in the Champions League and, in 2010, we sent both the Glamour Boys and Gunners into battle.
Now, if the exploits of a club can reap such rewards for a country, including earning an extra slot in the Champions League and Confederation Cup, how then is it possible that we can separate the club, in this case Dynamos, and the country that it is representing, in this case Zimbabwe, and how then does our description of DeMbare as “Zimbabwe’s representatives” qualify to be termed, as Ranga puts it in his note, something close to drivel?
And, if their standards fall, as has been the case when they have competed in the Champions League since 2011, and it has a bearing on the number of slots that we can have on the continent, with the country losing its extra places that were given as a bonus for excellence, how then can we divorce them from this country when their results have a direct impact on this nation and its football?
We have no reason to all like DeMbare, and life gives us those freedoms where we can choose the team that we want to support, something that always takes me down memory lane to the good wild days of the ‘80s when my hometown team, Falcon Gold, or Bweraufe (Come and Die), as we preferred to call them in the dominant Nyanja language of the Chakari of that era, was the team of my dreams.
But whether we like Dynamos or not is irrelevant because there is no escaping from the fact that, whenever they compete in the Champions League, which is usually the case, they carry a mirror through which the image of Zimbabwean club football is reflected.
Whether we support DeMbare or not is irrelevant because there is no hiding from the fact that, whenever they compete in the Champions League, something that they do with frustrating regularity if you are one of those who don’t like their appearance on this stage, they carry a stethoscope through which the pulse of Zimbabwean club football is measured.
Whether we back the Glamour Boys or not is irrelevant because there is no shield to blind us from the fact that, whenever they compete in the Champions League, something that they do with so much frequency these days it has become an annual pilgrimage, they carry the monitor through which the blood pressure, or general health, of Zimbabwean club football is measured.
By default, the Glamour Boys become participants in a continental beauty pageant and through them, the good looks, charm, style and elegance of Zimbabwean club football is paraded and, on the occasions they come short, as has been the case in the past three campaigns, the ugliness, the repulsiveness, the disfigurement or the monstrousness of our club football, is exhibited, in its full colours, on the grand stage.
So, how is it possible, with all these connections, for us to say that DeMbare are not representing Zimbabwe in the Champions League, as Ranga Mberi wants us to do, and they are just representing their constituency, their seven-or-so-million fans, whatever the number could be now, and their fate has absolutely nothing to do with us?
They carry more than their load, whenever they venture into the jungles of African football, they fly more than their blue-and-white flag, they fly a flag that is more important than their own, which has gold on its stripe and a red colour that represents the blood that was shed by those ultimate heroes who fought for our freedom and independence and, as I accompanied them in their miraculous adventure in 1998, there was a feeling in that squad those fallen heroes were walking with us, providing the breaks of luck.
Yes, Ranga, we don’t need to support them and those rivals who celebrate, when they are whipped on the continent, have a case because that is the nature of the game but the truth, mate, no matter how much it hurts, is that they are representing our country in the Champions League.
To God Be The Glory!
Come on DeMbare, Come on Chikurupati !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Rooneyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy!
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