This is not good enough: Gorowa

Zimbabwe’s failed Metropolitan Cosafa Under-20 Youth Championships campaign.
He has also questioned whether the class of 2011 was the best that the Young Warriors could assemble for the tournament.

Gorowa, who coached cash-rich Sundowns in the South African Premiership for much of the 2010-11 season, has been in Gaborone since the start of the annual youth tournament, which countries in Southern Africa use as a development platform to identify and nurture talent for their senior national teams.

But the former Black Rhinos, Dynamos and Ajax Cape Town striker, who has become a respected voice in the regional game, cast a shadow on the path that Zimbabwe’s development programme is taking while branding the overall showing by Taurai Mangwiro’s Young Warriors as chaotic.
Gorowa said he was also disappointed with the way South Africa had applied themselves at the competition and said, together with Zimbabwe, “they lacked organisation and even a basic playing structure.”

Both the Young Warriors and Amajita crashed out of the tournament at the group stage with Angola winning Group D which also had Zimbabwe, Namibia and Madagascar while South Africa lost the race for the semi-final ticket to champions after being humiliated 5-1 by Chipolopolo.
Although Gorowa reckoned that Zifa had done well to go for continuity by retaining Mangwiro as the Under-20 mentor, he also felt that that the Monomotapa coach had got his cards terribly wrong this year, even questioning his selection of the final 20 that made the trip from Harare to Gaborone.

But as the Young Warriors returned home yesterday after only managing two draws (1-1 against Namibia and 5-5 against Madagascar) which sandwiched their 3-2 defeat by eventual Group D winners Angola, Gorowa spoke of his disappointment to see his country fail to make an impact at the competition.
“There are two questions to ask . . . is this the best that Zimbabwe has in talent and if it indeed it is the best then maybe we are just going through a barren spell like any other development structure.

“We also have to ask whether we did our best to identify the talent that can prepared for Under-23 tournaments and the future senior team, looking at what we have in the rural and urban areas.
“It’s always an excuse to say we don’t have resources but it doesn’t cost you a lot to have players holding training camps in the provinces and the coach can be in a given province every month.
“And, in the long run, the players will understand the coach’s philosophy and we should have a structure whereby the technical director should be running the development structure and working closely with the development coaches,” Gorowa said.

Gorowa was also not amused by the general standard of play on show here and felt poor coaching techniques and pressure to win had largely contributed to the decline in comparison to what he had seen in previous editions of the Cosafa tournament.
“The standard this year is below what I expected but I was happy with just the commitment from the boys.

“Talking from a coaching perspective, I think the coaches should realise that this is a development tournament and thus we should be seeing winning with quality but most of the coaches here have just wanted to win without quality.

“Yet if you watch the Under-20 tournaments in Europe or South America, you can see that there is quality in the games, the kind of quality you could see at the World Cup and that what youth football should be about, it should also be very enjoyable,” said Gorowa.
Gorowa also took a swipe at the majority of the Cosafa member associations for lacking seriousness in developing the game.

“Maybe it is because most associations do not take this tournament seriously and in the end they prepare jus a week or two before coming into the competition.
“For me I saw good coaching from Tanzania and they were organised in the way they played their 4-4-2 and at times also aggressive. It was the same story with Zambia and their 4-3-3 formation.
“I also thought that Swaziland left a mark this time around in terms of good organisation and for me the organised teams were Tanzania, Namibia, Swaziland and of course Zambia”.

Gorowa, who is also here on a scouting mission for Sundowns, said the low standards had made it difficult for scouts like him and Malawian legend Ernest Mtawali to identify good players at the tournament.

“You really have to look deep to find the good players and the coaches who are here did not make it easier for the scouts. South Africa and Zimbabwe are not very bad sides to be honest but to be brutal I think the coaching lacked a bit.
“I didn’t see much in terms of outstanding players in the Zimbabwe team although Ronald Chitiyo, Willard Kalongonda and Kuda Mahachi have the talent.

“It’s not easy anyway to unearth a diamond but I think in Africa we have the talent but we are not organised.
“I watched South Africa’s structure and their shape on the pitch was not pleasing to see.

“You should be able to see a team’s shape whether they are playing 4-3-3 or 4-2-2 but these youngsters not have to be confused with some delicate systems that affect their football and for Zimbabwe it was chaotic and the players’ roles were not defined.

“I think Tau did well last year but this year he didn’t do well, he made some mistakes but the god thing is that there was continuity and Zifa did well to retain him, he can only get better and he will go back and work on his mistakes and come back better prepared next year,” Gorowa said.

Mangwiro tried to use a 3-5-2 formation that never really got going with the material he brought to Gaborone this term. Zifa will also have to critically look at the role they played in failing the Young Warriors – the only team at the tournament with an unbranded kit. They should also question themselves as to whether they afforded Mangwiro and his assistant Mandla Mpofu the time and the resources to scout for talent from the academies, the Division One clubs and the Premiership sides.