When shooting blanks becomes an art in football

WE have to admit that we have a crisis on our hands in local football, where our players, especially strikers, seem to have taken a long sabbatical, which is unfortunate in a game where winning simply means outscoring the opponent.

Just to put things into perspective, CAPS United striker William Manondo is currently the leading scorer in the Castle Lager Premier Soccer League with 11 goals after 26 rounds of action.

This seems to be Mickey Mouse stuff considering that the goal machine that is Manchester City’s Erling Haaland has already banged in nine goals in just four matches in the English Premier League.

And his tally includes two hattricks.

While some might consider this to be akin to comparing a Toyota Probox to a Rolls-Royce Phantom, there still remains more than enough evidence to show the bareness and wretchedness that afflicts the local game.

That no player has scored a hattrick so far in the top-flight, particularly at the tail-end of the season, is so embarrassing that it should lead to our collective shame.

Ever since Norman Maroto’s historic feat in 2010, no player has scored 20 or more goals in the local elite league.

The late Maroto — may his soul rest in eternal peace — scored 22 goals for Gunners.

And this is a good 14 years ago.

In the local premiership, goals are becoming as rare as hen’s teeth and our strikers have become as ineffective as a bicycle in a swimming pool.

It was worse in 2016, when Leonard Tsipa won the Golden Boot after scoring a yawning 11 goals for CAPS United.

The award felt more like a wooden spoon than a golden one.

And it is also precisely because of impotence in front of goal that recently saw Ngezi Platinum being ignominiously eliminated from the preliminary round of the CAF Champions League.

Unfortunately, this bluntness has spilled into the national team, where shooting blanks has become an art, craft and speciality.

In the recent AFCON qualifiers against Cameroon in Uganda, Khama Billiat, Douglas Mapfumo and Walter Musona all came close, but none found the target.

Not that the team did not create chances.

Zimbabwe actually had about 17 chances at goal.

The goalless draw against the Indomitable Lions was Zimbabwe’s second on the trot, after they had laboured to a dull draw against Kenya in their opening qualifier at the same venue.

Zimbabwe have now fired blanks in three consecutive matches, if we factor in their 0-2 loss against the Harambee Stars of Kenya in a Cosafa Cup match played in July.

Well, the last time Zimbabwe scored three or more goals in a game was in September 2019, when the Warriors thumped Lesotho 3-1 in an African Nations Championship qualifier.

That is exactly five years ago.

No player has scored a hattrick for the Warriors in almost a decade.

Ovidy Karuru achieved the feat in the 6-0 drubbing of Seychelles in a Cosafa Cup first-round match on June 30, 2017.

Two weeks earlier, Knowledge Musona’s hattrick had powered Zimbabwe to a 3-0 victory against Liberia in a 2019 AFCON qualifier at the National Sports Stadium.

Since independence, only four players — Karuru, Musona, Peter Ndlovu and Vitalis Takawira — have scored hattricks for Zimbabwe.

The current situation represents a depressing low point, especially ever since the legendary Moses Chunga plundered a record 46 goals for Dynamos in 1986.

Is it because we no longer have creative midfield players in the mould of the inimitable Ronald “Gidiza” Sibanda or Francis “Gweje Gweje” Chandida?

That surely cannot be the case.

Whatever the case might be, we really have a huge problem, and it might prove fatal in the Warriors AFCON and FIFA World Cup qualifying prospects.

Until next time.

Peace!

Yours Sincerely,

Bra Shakes.