Online Reporter
Howard Musonza-Head Zimpapers Sports Hub
MICHAEL NEES leans forward in his chair on The Couch, the Zimpapers Television Network show.
The German coach tries to brush aside the question that has been hanging over him for months: Does he see himself as the saviour of Zimbabwean football?
“I never said that. I never think I am a messiah of anything, I’m sorry,” he says.
It is a neat denial, one that might have closed the subject. But then comes the slip, the telling turn that reveals the way he really sees himself.
“When I look at the real Warriors, you had 19 games before me, two wins, the third win came in the 23rd game. Actually, your football was really down when I came. To be straight honest, whether you like it or not, somehow we could turn the page and we achieved something in three months. In my own opinion, it was over-achievement and you couldn’t ask for more,” he says.
This is the contradiction that defines Nees’ year in charge of the Warriors.
He insists he is not a messiah, then speaks like one. He downplays the claim, then builds a narrative where Zimbabwean football was in ruins until he came along.
The bravado is constant, the numbers less so.
In 12 months, Nees has taken charge of 10 matches. The return: two wins, six draws and two defeats. A win rate of just 20 percent, with every victory coming against the same opponent, Namibia.
He has drawn with Kenya twice, split points with Cameroon, Nigeria, Benin and Niger, and lost one time each to Burkina Faso and Cameroon. For all the noise about turning the page, Zimbabwe under Nees have failed to beat a single heavyweight.
And yet, he calls the year an over-achievement.
“When I came, we wanted and we needed to qualify for the AFCON. Why? Because you would have been again two years in the wilderness, your football completely down, the noise, the drama, everything,” says Nees.
“It would have brought your football two years back. So, basically if you want a mandate, that we achieved. It would have been a massive setback if you had not qualified.”
For him, qualifying for AFCON is not just success. It is salvation.
But history says otherwise.
Zimbabwe had qualified for the tournament six times before Nees ever set foot in Harare.
Sunday Chidzambwa took the Warriors to Tunisia in 2004. Charles Mhlauri followed with a trip to Egypt in 2006. Kalisto Pasuwa, Norman Mapeza and Zdravko Logarusic all secured qualifications in the years that followed. They did it quietly, without turning their appointments into myths of redemption. Nees, however, has cast himself as the man who prevented Zimbabwe from being “lost in the wilderness”.
Pressed further, Nees is defiant.
“Look, very simple. You need to look at results. We qualified. That was important because you were banned before, and the pressure was so high also for the players,” he says.
“It was really very important, I’m telling you, if you wouldn’t have qualified, it would have brought football very, very much back, no doubt about that.”
But when it is pointed out that he did not pluck his players from Mars, that the same squad had been available before, his tone is sharper, even dismissive.
“It’s not true. Khama Billiat was not ready to play, Washington Arubi had not been brought back, and without these two players most likely we wouldn’t have qualified. The other players did not perform to their level,” he says.
In his version of the story, Zimbabwe qualified because he made two phone calls. One to a semi-retired playmaker, another to an ageing goalkeeper. The rest, he says, were not good enough.
That arrogance runs through his tenure. He speaks as though no one else could have coaxed Billiat out of retirement, no one else could have trusted Arubi, no one else could have solved the supposed “goalkeeping crisis”.
“When I came, you had here a goalkeeper, there a goalkeeper. Marley Tavaziva had not even been given a minute of game time. So, I recalled Washington Arubi. Now, after one year we have four, five keepers competing, and Arubi has been outstanding,” he says.
Arubi’s steady hands have helped, but he is 38, hardly a long-term solution.
Billiat, meanwhile, remains a player whose best years are behind him. Yet Nees speaks of their recalls as though he alone had the vision to see their worth.
Even the youngsters he has introduced are belittled.
“Chirewa, who you always hype, very good player don’t get me wrong, but he still has to establish himself in club football,” says Nees.
“I gave Marley Tavaziva his first cap, yes, but he must break through at his club. We are not a development team.”
It is a curious contradiction: boasting about handing debuts, then immediately downplaying their value.
Outside AFCON, the results are even less forgiving.
In World Cup qualifiers, Zimbabwe have yet to win, including the two games Nees was in charge of.
Six games, four draws, two defeats, and bottom of Group C.
Against Burkina Faso in a friendly, they were swept aside 2-0. Against Niger, they laboured to a draw. These are not the results of a coach who has transformed a footballing culture.
And yet he insists his impact has been extraordinary.
“To be straight honest, whether you like it or not, somehow, we could turn the page and we achieved something in three months. In my own opinion, it was over-achievement,” he says.
The words clash with the reality. Two wins in 10 matches is not over-achievement. It is the bare minimum.
The story of Zimbabwean football is longer than Nees’ one year in charge. It is a story of Chidzambwa’s fearless pioneers, Mhlauri’s battlers in Egypt, Pasuwa’s star-studded squad in Gabon, Mapeza’s resilience and Logarusic’s qualification under difficult circumstances.
It is a story that proves Zimbabwe did not need a German coach to find the way to AFCON. Nees may not call himself a messiah. But his words, heavy with bravado, make the claim for him. He has built a narrative where he only could have prevented Zimbabwe from sinking, where only he could have turned players into performers, where only he could have carried a nation back to the big stage.
The numbers, and the history, tell another story. They say Zimbabwe had been here before him, and they will be here after him. They say two wins in 10 matches is not salvation. They say Nees is not a messiah.
He is just the man in charge, talking louder than his record allows.
