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Soma-Phiri loves both giants to make a call
Robson Sharuko Senior Sports Editor
MAKWINJI Soma-Phiri blazed a trail in August 1995 when he became the first player to move directly from Highlanders to Dynamos and, three months later, helped the Glamour Boys win the league championship.
A successful marriage, which started as a loan deal before it was made permanent, would later see Soma-Phiri help DeMbare become the first Zimbabwean club to reach the final of the African Champions League in 1998.
He knows both camps, the Bosso camp that helped him cut his milk teeth at the top-level at the turn of the ‘90s, and the DeMbare camp that gave him a home where his talent, as a combative forward, blossomed.
Yesterday, with the nation still engrossed in the countdown to what promises to be an explosive Battle of Zimbabwe showdown at Barbourfields on Sunday, Soma-Phiri was talking to The Herald and, 18 years after leaving Bosso, he said Highlanders still feels like home.
And so does Dynamos, the team he eventually left in 2001, after half-a-dozen years of faithful and distinguished service, to join SuperSport United of South Africa.
“They are both my teams, Highlanders and Dynamos, they are the same to me,” Soma-Phiri, who has been working in the capital since retiring from the game, said.
“I can’t say this team is closer to me or more important to me than the other because I feel like that I belong to both of them and it’s like one is my right foot and the other is my left foot, they are both my feet and are very important to me.
“I like them both, in the same special way, and I wish them well in whatever they do and if one of them is successful, then so be it, but I always wish they could all be successful because they are both close to my heart.”
Of course, that is expected.
He would be foolish to forget the comfortable nursery that Bosso provided for him, when he was just a greenhorn, and how they helped him ease into the big-time that, by ’91, when he was still fresh on the scene, he was already attracting the interests of English Premiership side Coventry City.
It was at Dynamos, of course, where he really thrived and won the league championship in 1995 and 1997 and, famously, walking side-by-side with his fearless teammates in the jungles of African football, went all the way to the final of the Champions League.
There were some highlights, too, along the way, notably, the sensational hat-trick as DeMbare buried bitter rivals CAPS United in a 3-1 win in the Africa Day Challenge Cup final at Rufaro on May 25, 1998.
And his stunning headed winner, after coming in as a substitute, to give Dynamos a 2-1 victory in the Firstel Big Cities Cup first round, first leg tie against Highlanders at the National Sports Stadium in December 2000.
Soma-Phiri feels the Battle of Zimbabwe will be an intense affair on Sunday.
“It will be tense, no doubt about that, and there will be a lot of pressure and it’s about who handles the pressure better, between the two sets of players, which will decide what should be a very close match,” said Soma-Phiri.
“When such games come along, as far as I know, form counts for nothing because it’s a different challenge and a different atmosphere and you can’t say we have been playing very well when you have been playing teams that are considered weaker than the team you are facing now.
“When you look at what has been happening, it’s easy to say that Highlanders have the advantage because they have been winning and will have the home crowd behind them but that big crowd, when you are playing such a big game, also brings in the pressure element and you have to deal with that and it’s not easy.
“We saw it last year when Dynamos needed to beat Highlanders to effectively end the title race but there was intense pressure on them and it resulted in the ‘keeper making a big mistake and that game ended as a draw.
“I think that is what is probably disappointing about these big games because the players don’t want to make a mistake and, what that means is that they are not adventurous, they don’t express themselves as freely as they would do in the other games.”
Soma-Phiri said a Dynamos/Highlanders game will always be a special occasion, even if it doesn’t produce a classic, because of the atmosphere.
“You have both sets of fans really up for it, wanting to drive their teams to win this big game and you feel the tension when you come to the stadium and that, to me, is the key factor when the game is either won or lost,” said Soma-Phiri.
“Those that retain their focus, who refuse to be overwhelmed by the occasion, those who make the fewer mistakes, are likely to emerge as the winners at the end and I don’t see it changing on Sunday.
“It’s the biggest game that Bulawayo has hosted, maybe, in the past seven years because Highlanders have a chance to really impose themselves in this race, if they can hold their nerve and win this tie.
“There is also pressure on Dynamos because if they lose then maybe that’s the end of their hold on the championship but when you are not at home, the pressure is less than when you are in front of your home crowd.
“I think it will be a fair and good game and there will be something for the fans who will come in their numbers.”
Now 43 years old, Soma-Phiri has come a long way from that bulldozing forward who was probably the best header of the ball, at his peak, in the domestic Premiership where he terrorised defences and made a big name for himself.
He is now too busy, with his business commitments, to make regular visits to the stadiums to watch the domestic Premiership matches.
But there is something special about the Battle of Zimbabwe, he told me yesterday, business can take a back seat this weekend because he intends to travel back to the City of Kings, where his football journey began, to watch the two teams that shaped his career, clash in the Mother of All Battles.
He is not the only one.
Reports indicate that there will be quite a number of fans, based in Botswana and South Africa, coming for this big match — just to soak in the atmosphere and be in the theatre of dreams when the two giants clash.
Online Reporter