Tsholotsho FC come of age?

TSHOLOTSHO FC announced their arrival in the league of the elite with a BANG following their win over Harare City, a team that has over the years shown little respect to local football powerhouses Dynamos and Highlanders. But still there are lessons to be learnt! A journey down memory lane would reveal that small teams in the Premier Soccer League prefer to be safe from relegation rather than go for the spectacular.

The “we are fighting relegation mantra” has become embedded in the so-called small clubs who preferred to play second fiddle to traditional giants such as Highlanders, Caps United and Dynamos.

To them Championship glory is for the “big boys’’ hence there were timid attempts to fight for the big bone.
This defeatist attitude is understandable when it is exhibited by the smaller relegation fodder clubs, but the successes of Monomotapa and Gunners in 2008, and 2009 respectively should have seen more “small” clubs graduating from that negative attitude.

Outside the big three, Highlanders, Caps and Dynamos, Motor Action grabbed it in 2010. ZPC Kariba’s spirited run last season, perhaps, is a recent eye-opener for the other so-called small teams to be overly ambitious, and that success, just like destiny, is always in one’s hands.

Tsholotsho’s stunning 1-0 victory over Harare City should not go unnoticed, and should be inspired by the past successes of “minnows” Gunners and Monomotapa.

In fact the greatest motivating factor for the players making their first appearance in top-flight football is winning games. And, anything on the contrary would prove an inhibiting factor.

And Tsholotsho must have or are inspired by an illustrious son from that part of the country, Professor Jonathan Moyo, who has provided timely backing by taking care of their expenses when playing away from home.

The win by Tsholotsho has also proved to all and sundry that in D1 that is where football lies, and that in D1 that is where you find young, disciplined, determined, ambitious and energetic personnel. And as for Tsholotsho, cohesion, a vital aspect in any team was evidently there, the reason we understand coach Lizwe Sweswe’s lads have been playing together and perfecting their art for more than two years.

The attitude that “we are not going to change things just for the sake of it” and that “we won’t derail our progression by completely overhauling our side for the so-called experienced players,” appears to have been a gamble that perhaps is/will pay dividends.

After all, what is important in top flight is being competitive, how one adjusts to PSL standards, while at the same time LEARNING.
A boy becomes a man when he begins to make his own decisions, and make his own way through life’s perils. “Real’’ men are honest, trustworth, strong, not necessarily physically, but emotionally. They should be guys you can count on to stand by many who believe in them. Men make decisions for themselves. Boys make decisions based on what their friends think. Men tell the truth. Boys lie. Men stand for the people they love, in this case those numerous supporters who have been behind them until they made it to the Promised Land.

The Premiership League is a platform where the competent are separated from the less competent.
The PSL is different from lower division football as the philosophy is different, with many budgetary constraints, high competition, where discipline is the cornerstone for success.

Tsholotsho appear to have loads of all those traits.
On that memorable Friday in Harare Tsholotsho proved to all and sundry that they deserve to be among the MEN and that they are no longer boys after all, more so after that gutsy performance against Harare City.

But it should not be lost to them that that win on Friday, might have been a wake-up call to their next opponents, starting with Highlanders’ next weekend.

Their detractors may be saying it’s early days for one to judge Iziqholo Zezhwane’s pedigree, but they say a journey of a thousands miles begins with one step, and it is that one BIG step that might determine, predictably a “fairy tale” run in the elite league.

For feedback: [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], Whatsapp 0772 682 368 or Face book Phineas Mukwazo.