When will our fans smile at home?

Grace Chingoma Senior Sports Reporter
IT has become the norm that Sunday afternoons, whenever the Warriors play at home, there are a lot of miserable faces that make their way out of the stadium. It has been the case since we started this 2014 World Cup campaign, from day one when we lost to Guinea at the National Sports Stadium.
And, when we ended the campaign yesterday, while more than the faces in the technical team had changed, the more that things appeared to stay the same for the fans.

For the record, we finished the 2014 World Cup journey with just two points from a possible 18. They say facts are stubborn.
Drawn in Group G, which featured Guinea, Egypt and Mozambique, all we could do was just get two points from our Southern African counterparts.

Maybe the story that we wrote, which will give the Soccer Africa panellists something to talk about, is that we had three coaches for six games in our World Cup campaign.

Rahman Gumbo began the journey with a 0-1 defeat at the hands of Guinea at the National Sports Stadium.
He went on to share the spoils with Mozambique in Maputo as the Warriors were held to a goalless draw.
He passed on the baton to Klaus Dieter Pagels.

And Pagels saw his team lose 1-2 against Egypt in Alexandria before suffering a humiliating 2-4 defeat at home against the Pharaohs.
The team then went to Conakry and the German mentor and his troops lost 0-1.

Ian “Dibango” Gorowa then came in with Zimbabwe already out of contention for a place in the final round of the global showcase and merely playing for pride.

In his only game, the team drew 1-1 with Mozambique.
This paints a gloomy picture of our national team and where do we go from here?
Yesterday, some fans, disappointed that it is another bad day in the office for the Warriors, chose to sing songs in praise of former coach Norman Mapeza.

He might not be in the picture right now but Mapeza appears to have built a very special bond with the supporters and they seem he is the Messiah who can take this team to dizzy heights.

But maybe they need to be reminded that Zimbabwe’s football challenges don’t require just an individual to pull the game from this quagmire.

Our football needs to start with baby steps.
People should go back to the drawing board. They should start talking about junior development. They should start talking about our youth teams.

As long the structures in the Under-17s, Under-20s and Under-23s remain in shambles, then we will continue to sing the blues.
As long as we believe that there are detractors out there trying to destroy the game, rather than pool our resources to help it, then we are going nowhere.

I had an opportunity to sit down for only one hour with Uruguay Football Federation technical director taking me through their development programme as a nation.

He clearly spelt it out.
And now I know there is no magic in football.
From that one hour interview I learnt a lot and saw a vision of a country when it comes to football.
Sadly, I don’t see that vision for my country.

I am yet to pick anything from the numerous boardroom meetings I have attended.
What I have seen are people who see shadows, who spit a lot of venom, while the game continues to struggle.
I can’t understand why, on the eve of such an important game, we should release such depressing news that Zifa technical director, Nelson Matongorere has been suspended.

Yes, he should be held accountable for whatever he did but what value did his story bring to our preparations for the game against the Mambas?

All that it did was bring this ugly political angle, and let it divide attention, when everyone should be talking and focussing on the game.
Surely, would there have been a problem to then release the story today, after the game has been played?
For all that we know, Matongorere has worked with these players, for a very long time since they were kids, and why did we affect part of their focus with such depressing news that their mentor had been suspended?

Bridges should be mended.
People should be working on the ground.
There is more that we can do as a nation, working together, and our football will be the biggest beneficiary.