TOO BAD, WE ARE ON OUR (K)NEES

Sharuko on Saturday

IN a way, I have been stuck in some form of semi-retirement from sports journalism for the past three years.

I guess that’s normal, especially when you have spent three decades toiling in its trenches, dabbling in its toxic politics and battling with its crazy characters.

You take a deep breath and you remember all the guys who used to be in the same trenches with you.

Sam Marisa, Tinaye Garande, Lovemore Musharavati, Phillip Magwaza, Jabes Lefani, Tendai Ndemera and Assel Gwekwerere, these were colleagues I used to share the sports journalism trenches with.

But, now, they are all gone.

And, that compels one to reflect and three years ago, on the occasion of the 30th anniversary of the year my romance with this grand old newspaper started, I took a deep breath and reflected.

Somehow, it appears my bosses on the Sixth Floor of Herald House, were also reflecting and they decided to switch me to a new adventure, leading the H-Metro tabloid.

With a full plate to deal with – from Madam Boss to Mai TT, from Jah Prayzah to Winky D, from Mukanya to Tuku, from DJ Towers to MaBrijo, from crimes to passion to the wizards of fashion – sports journalism has been something like a distraction.

An afterthought!

I’m no longer on the frontline, as I was in the past, and that is why you don’t see me travelling to cover the Warriors when they are fighting for our cause across the continent.

But it doesn’t mean I’m totally detached from sports journalism.

And, I have always told myself that when there is a major crisis, like someone trying to steal Dynamos and convert it into a family tuck shop, I will temporarily return into the trenches.

We have a major crisis in our Warriors right now and that, alone, is enough for a return into the trenches.

Michael Nees, the man who deceived us when he came with a fake nice guy image, is now showing his true colours.

He is now showing us that he is a man who, despite his inflated ego, is hopelessly out of depth with the demands of coaching when it comes to African national teams.

He has his army of admirers here, and that’s normal, but that will not mask the grim reality that Nees is dragging the Warriors backwards with his strange and rigid type of football.

It’s hard to understand what really swayed the ZIFA normalisation committee to settle for Nees when his CV is clearly lightweight and, in Key Performance Indicators, only refer to failed stints as coach of Rwanda and Seychelles.

If you see a European coach, especially those from powerful football countries like Germany, starting his adventure on the continent with a job as coach of Seychelles, then that should be a red flag.

The real fine coaches from countries like Germany don’t waste their time with fleeting romantic Indian Ocean island attachments with lightweight nations like Seychelles.

They don’t have time to waste because they are already bigger than such Mickey Mouse assignments.

They plunge straight into the real deals.

Let’s take his countryman Gernot Rohr, for instance.

He was the man who, as head coach of Benin, masterminded the 0-1 defeat we suffered in Abidjan last week, which ended our World Cup qualifying campaign, with three games left.

Rohr didn’t start his African coaching adventure with Mickey Mouse assignments with teams like Mauritius but plunged straight into the furnace with teams like Gabon, Niger, Burkina Faso, Nigeria and Benin.

THE NEES QUESTIONS ZIFA SHOULD ANSWER

I questioned Nees’ recruitment on this very blog when he was named the man who was going to take charge of the Warriors last year and, it now appears, for a good reason, too.

I asked how a coach, who has never taken charge of a game at the AFCON finals, could be trusted to add value to a team which now doesn’t consider qualifying for the tournament as a success?

I asked how do we expect a coach, who will be learning, for the first time, what it means to guide a team at the AFCON finals, to then be the architect to help our Warriors do better than what they have done in the past at the same tournament?

I asked how a coach, who struggled with Seychelles in 2003, could be expected to be the game-changer who would transform our Warriors, and make them a better side, in 2024?

I asked how one of the four coaches, whose teams have lost to Eritrea, who are not even ranked by FIFA, can be the man who our ZIFA leaders believe could make our Warriors competitive – about 20 years later?

I asked how a coach who had won just THREE AFCON/World Cup qualifiers since his arrival on the continent 21 years earlier, could be the man the ZIFA bosses believed would make the Warriors a better team?

I asked the ZIFA bosses why didn’t they ask themselves why no one else, including Eritrea and the likes, was interested in hiring Nees as their national team coaches in the 17 years that lapsed between his departure from Rwanda in 2007 and his arrival here in 2024?

I asked the ZIFA bosses why the only teams, which ended up employing Nees during that period, were the likes of Israel Under-21 and Kosovo Under-21 and what did that say to them?

Football is about statistics.

• When you have a coach, like Nees, whose record in Africa reads – Played 22 AFCON/World Cup qualifiers, won FIVE, drew SIX and lost 11 games, those statistics should be telling us a big story on their own.
• When you have a coach like Nees, who has lost HALF of the games that he has taken charge of either in World Cup or AFCON qualifiers, and won less than half of the other 11 games, which he did not lose, those statistics should be telling us a big story.
• When you have a coach like Nees, who usually wins, at most, just TWO games in every country he leads, which was the case in Rwanda and is now the case with him here in Zimbabwe, those statistics should be telling us a big story.
• When you have a coach, like Nees, whose overall record shows that he has picked just 21 points out of a possible 66 points since he started his coaching adventure in the jungles of African football, those statistics should be telling us a big story.
• When you have a coach, like Needs, whose record is a very poor return which shows that he took home just 31.8 percent of the points, which have been on offer to the three nations which he has guided on the continent, then those statistics should be telling us a big story.
• When you have a coach, like Nees, who in other words, dropped a staggering 68,2 percent of the points, which were at stake, from the time he embarked on his journey on the continent, then those statistics should be telling us a big story.
• When you have a European coach like Nees who has taken just 11 of the 30 points, which have been on offer since he became Zimbabwe coach, with SIX of those 11 points, which stands for more than the number of points won, coming from just one team – Namibia, then those statistics should be telling us a big story.
• When you have a coach, like Nees, whose teams have generally struggled to score with his Warriors only scoring more than one goal in just two of their 10 matches — against Namibia (3-1) and Benin (2-2) – then those statistics should be telling us a big story.
• When you have a coach, like Nees, whose other teams – Rwanda and Seychelles – also struggled to score goals and scored more than one goal in just four of their 12 matches, then those statistics should be telling us a big story.

And, to make it worse, Nees even has the audacity to mock us by saying that we have generally struggled in the World Cup qualifiers, which is true, without even imagining that the whole reason we settled for a European coach was that we wanted to change that narrative.

And, we have even become worse with him in charge despite having a better generation of players than those who failed us in the past.

Yes, I understand the argument of those who say the picture would probably have been better if we played at home.

But, Benin are also homeless, they have a proper German coach and are just three points behind leaders Bafana Bafana in our group.

Nees is arrogant, he thinks that being German means he knows football better than all of us when, in reality, his poor knowledge of the game should be reserved for the likes of Kosovo Under-21, which he coached in the past.

How can one enjoy his semi-retirement in all this chaos?

To God Be The Glory

Peace to the GEPA Chief, the Big Fish, George Norton, Daily Service, Sitting Bull, Crazy Horse and all the Chakariboys still in the struggle.

Come on Warriors!!!!!!!!!!!!

Khamaldinhoooooooooooo!

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