adminNEXT year, South Africa will mark the 20th anniversary of the year when the Springboks wrote one of sport’s ultimate unlikely success stories when, against all the odds heavily stacked against them, they won the ’95 Rugby World Cup. The Boks’ amazing 15-12 triumph over favourites All-Blacks in a gripping final that spilled into extra-time and was decided by Joel Stransky’s drop goal, remains one of the greatest upsets, in the final of a major sporting tournament, the world has ever seen.
While the Boks had been away, isolated from the world because of the madness of apartheid, rugby had moved on and the All-Blacks and the Wallabies of Australia had dominated the two Rugby World Cups that had been played in ’87 and ’91.
The Boks represented a fragmented nation, divided by race in which rugby was seen not only as a sport for the racist whites but a branch of their racist policies, and how they were struggling, to carry the weight of the load on their shoulders, was clearly evident in their semi-final tie against France where they scratched a 19-15 win over France in Durban.
But in the final, against an All-Blacks side that had destroyed England 49-29 in the semi-finals, who possessed the destructive force of wing Jonah Lomu, scorer of four ties against the English, the Boks were not given a chance.
The defining moment of that final at Ellis Park, parked to the rafters with about 64 000 fans, comes with seven minutes left in extra-time, with the Boks down 9-12 and the Zealanders pressing, with a score for the men from the Land of the Long White Cloud, effectively ending this match as a contest. There is a break in play and the Boks’ skipper, Francois Pienaar, calls his players and gives them an inspirational 20-second speech that has become a tale of the legends.
“Heads up! Look in my eyes. Do you hear? LISTEN TO YOUR COUNTRY,” Pienaar tells his men as 60 000-plus South Africans roar for their Boks in the background.
“Seven minutes. Seven minutes! Defence! Defence! Defence! THIS IS IT! THIS IS OUR DESTINY! KOM BOKKE! (Let’s go Springboks!).”
Of course, the Boks listened to their country and, in a feat that has inspired the production of a Hollywood blockbuster, Invictus, emerged triumphant, against all the odds, to write one of the unlikely success stories of all-time.
As the Warriors went on their remarkable journey at the African Nations Championships, where they arrived carrying very little hopes from a nation used to seeing a perennially under-achieving national football team, without their main forward, Tendai Ndoro, the latest to be stolen by the Moneybags of Super Diski, they took me back to the Springboks of the ’95 Rugby World Cup.
That the Warriors’ success story, scripted against all the odds, was being written in the Land of the Springboks, where the Miracle of ’95 had unfolded, made the comparison worthwhile and every hurdle they cleared, made me believe that, just like the Boks of ’95, Gorowa and his men were fated to win this tournament.
When Gorowa summoned his men for a prayer, before their penalty shootout drama at the Free State Stadium, the crowd, predominantly Zimbabwean and behind their cause, was still singing, as they had done all evening and, for me, it was like watching Invictus all over again, with Dibango, just like Pienaar before him, bellowing to his charges.
“Heads up! Look in my eyes. Do you hear? LISTEN TO YOUR COUNTRY,” Gorowa would have been telling his men as the Zimbabwean fans roared in the background of the Free State Stadium.
“Penalties! Penalties! Precision! Precision! Precision! THIS IS IT! THIS IS OUR DESTINY! COME ON Warriors!”
Of course, it didn’t happen, their hopes and a nation’s dreams crushed in cruel fashion in the penalty shootout lottery, but given where they came from, that no one had given them hope to even get past the group stages, that some of their fans abandoned them when they drew against Zambia at home not knowing they would win in Ndola and that in five games at the CHAN finals, no team was good enough to beat them either in regulation or extra-time, Dibango and his men still came out as heroes. We won’t get our Pienaar Moment, that iconic moment when the captain lifts the trophy, at this CHAN tournament but, given where we came from, the challenges that we faced, the hurdles that we cleared, the odds that we defied, the giants that we tamed, from Stallions to Eagles that came from as far as West Africa thinking that their giant frames were licences to victory, our fall at the semi-final, as painful as it was, had an air of triumph about it.
When The End Finally Came
WHEN the end came, on a rainy night in Bloemfontein, it was simply too unbearable to watch, to distressful to experience, too demoralising to embrace, too agonising to believe and too painful to accept.
In one little corner of the Free State Stadium, a small group of people in red-and-black outfits celebrated on the field, their incredible joy an island of happiness in an ocean of sorrow, as the majority in the ground drowned their sorrow.
The disappointment, boldly pronounced on the distressed face of every Zimbabwean on the pitch, and in the stands, told the horror of a nightmare that had swept across an entire nation that Wednesday night as reality finally dawned on all of us that the Warriors’ brave quest to win the CHAN tournament had fallen just short.
That the end had come in such heartbreaking fashion, with the roller-coaster penalty shootout drama giving us hope one minute and then blowing it away, in very cruel fashion, the next minute, only amplified the pain that paralysed our souls, as time appeared to stand still, the moment the Libyan ‘keeper converted the winning penalty.
That we had lost a match that we had dominated, from start to finish, against an anti-football opponent who didn’t park just the bus on their goal-line but also hired both the Gautrain and a forgotten NRZ coach, for two hours, to protect their goal, made the loss feel so horrible, the pain so terrible and the heartbreak so unbearable to nurse.
That we had faced three tougher teams, in this CHAN tournament, Morocco, Burkina Faso and Mali, and beaten two of them while drawing with the other, in matches in which we were tested far more than what we got from the anti-football Mediterranean Knights of Libya, who probably were a pathetic clone of a West Ham team that would later, that night, feature in an English Premiership tie against Chelsea, made this loss difficult to stomach. That our ‘keeper twice gave us a life, and twice we wasted it, in that shootout drama, made the loss difficult to accept.
On a heavy rugby pitch, whose condition had been worsened by the showers, the Warriors found out that this wasn’t a surface that would be kind to their efforts to try and pass the ball around and, crucially, it would favour the anti-football people of Libya.
Of course, we fashioned some chances, but they were few and far between, but given our superior possession, where we monopolised the ball as if we were we were using boots with magnets that kept luring the ball to our players, we should have done far much more and this game should never have spilled into that lottery.
One of our weaknesses, at this CHAN tournament, has been our creativity in midfield and while Peter “Rio” Moyo was the playmaker, when it finally dawned on Gorowa that he was the best of the creative players that he had in his squad, he isn’t that kind of player, like a vintage Ronald Sibanda, who turns the game with one killer pass.
Gorowa’s case wasn’t helped, to a large extent, by the fact that the other players who could have played that role, or complemented Rio, who clearly was one of our best players, came short with Pasca Manhanga freezing on the big stage, in the first game, and Tawanda Muparati being off colour every time the coach turned to him to make the difference.
But to look at this CHAN tournament, with negativity stalking every assessment that we make, would be grossly unfair to a group of gallant Warriors who gave a new definition to what we term success, when it comes to our representative national football teams on the continent, who were shining sporting ambassadors for their country and who, in just about three weeks, gave us an unforgettable experience of a life-time.
To judge these Warriors harshly, even on the occasions where they came short, would be an insult to the heroic contributions that they gave, in the name of their motherland, and while, as individuals, they could fall short here and there, which is normal in football and in games where you are playing the best on the continent, as a unit they were simply awesome and they deserve every praise word coming their way.
Even those who missed in the penalty shootout are not villains.
And those who have suddenly sunk so low, to see the Highlanders’ identity in Rio and Milton, simply because they failed from the spot, and suddenly see the Dynamos identity in Simba, simply because his effort crashed against the upright in the lottery, are pathetic souls who have lost their capacity to reason and, in their small world where they can’t see the virtues of nation building, they can spend the rest of their lives and no one will ever miss them.
These were the same voices who were making all those noises why Harare City, which finished third, were not represented in this team simply because these Warriors had stumbled to two draws but when they won against Burkina Faso, to make history and qualify for the quarter-finals, they suddenly went quiet, obviously, waiting for the next opportunity to strike, maybe wishing this team all the ill-fortune that could come their way, all in the name of satisfying their egos to criticise the squad.
When Milton Ncube was impressing as part of a defensive wall that conceded just one goal, in five games, and supplying that cross, for Masimba Mambare to score that priceless goal, these fly-by-night critics were quiet but then to target him, simply because he has missed a penalty in the shoot-out, something that Baggio, Beckham and a number of greats did at higher levels than CHAN, and start to label him a Bosso player, instead of a Warriors’ star, borders on foolishness.
When Simba scored that ‘goal’ that was disallowed, in a cruel and close call, the celebrations across the nation were instant but to turn against him, simply because he missed a penalty in a shoot-out, and then start describing him as a DeMbare flop, who has been rejected twice by Super Diski teams, is flirting close to the zone where normalcy is separated from madness.
These boys fought together, as a team, as a pack of Warriors, as a national side worth every respect they are getting from genuine football fans who were taken on a merry ride by their heroic performance at this tournament, and they showed us the value of unity, what we can achieve as a nation when we stand together as one and they will always be my heroes even if, unlike the Boks in ’95, their skipper didn’t lift the CHAN Cup.
Even ESPN Took Notice Of
Our Boys
‘Zimbabwe’s Unlikely Footballing Heroes Shine At Chan’
By Firdose Moonda
Zimbabwe are two matches away from recording the biggest achievement on the international stage — winning a continental cup.
Ian Gorowa’s Warriors have already made history by qualifying for the African Nations Championship semi-finals.
They turned a lacklustre start, which included goalless draws against Morocco and Uganda, into a sparkling run to the final four and in the process, entering territory they have not been in before.
Along the way, they were the only side whose defense was not breached throughout the group stages. The wall was only punctured in the quarterfinal, by Mali, but Zimbabwe won anyway.
With Libya and (should they win) one of Ghana or Nigeria to come, Zimbabwe are eyeing a major coup, one that will show enormous progress from the match-fixing scandal that rocked the country’s football in 2012.
With almost 100 players’ careers cut short, Zimbabwean football was plunged into crisis when it was revealed they had been involved in underhanded operations.
Their system was overhauled and, like anything new, was thought to need much time to recover. But in little more than 12 months, Zimbabwe in the words of the country’s Herald newspaper “helped to mend the shattered fabric of a national game.” Their performance has been a testament to the resilience that is so often associated with Zimbabwe – this is the country that survived hyper-inflation.
Zimbabwe’s defence went a minute short of six hours without conceding before they gave way as the match drew to a close with the Warriors deserving 2-1 winners.
Despite the late goal, Zimbabwe’s backline has been the talk of the tournament.
Partson Jaure and Eric Chipeta form the centre while Milton Ncube and Hardlife Zvirekwi are on the wings..
But it has also been the work of midfielders Danny Phiri and Peter Moyo that has been noticed.
Gorowa has told his players that this competition could “open a door” to foreign leagues but he hopes they will understand the “bigger picture” as well.
That’s not to say the two are mutually exclusive.
“A transfer or something for their own benefit will come if the team does well,” Gorowa said. And if the team triumphs, the intangible gains will be greater than Zimbabwe can imagine. They would be unlikely victors and unlikely heroes.
Usually, those are the best kind. — ESPN
Dibango Passes With Flying
Colours
Ian Gorowa will return home on Monday night with his heroes knowing that he has passed his first big test with flying colours and such has been his superb show, as coach of the Warriors, we all seem to have already forgotten that he is unbeaten since he took over from Dieter Klaus Pagels.
But CHAN should not be the end but the starting point of what, hopefully, will be a successful partnership for the coach and his men and the real challenge will always come when we plunge into battle for the Nations Cup and our South African adventure has shown us that we have men who could form the defensive unit of the team. I have always been a fan of the local coaches and I’m pretty sure that if Norman Mapeza hadn’t been disturbed by the politicians at Zifa, some of whom didn’t want him from the word go they ended up fabricating charges for him and, even after their so-called ban on him had lapsed, they still didn’t have the heart to advise him that he was free to coach again, maybe incensed by the fact that he had taken them to court to demand his dues, he would have taken us very far with his Warriors.
Today Norman is walking alone, no one can employ him because his status hasn’t been clarified, he can’t apply for a job because he doesn’t know where he stands, he has a running contract with the association from which he gets nothing, and hasn’t been getting anything for about two years now, and one of the brightest young coaches we had is slowly being wasted away. Hopefully, the same monster that swallowed Norman, will not strike again and destroy Dibango, something that you can’t guarantee in a minefield where things can quickly go wrong.
Thanks Dibango for the memories, for everything you did for us in South Africa, for giving us the right to believe again and for showing the world that we have football talent which, given support, can explode on the big stage.
May God Bless You!
To God Be The Glory!
Come on Warriors! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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