Yadah need a miracle

Robson Sharuko Senior Sports Editor
EXACTLY four months ago, things could not have been more different — free-spirited newboys were rocking the domestic Premiership with Miracle Goals, Miracles Saves, Miracle Victories and had even tasted the sweetness of life at the summit of the country’s top-flight league.

In sharp contrast, the old beast was snoring as it battled to shake off the hangover of a pre-season where a cloud of uncertainty had cast a huge dark shadow over its kingdom with a wave of speculation and depressing defeats crippling its efforts to punch to its weight.

A teenage forward, straight out of high school, was dominating the headlines, running at seasoned defenders with the freedom of a gangster, like a later-day Godfather, who knew his immense wealth and control over just about everything made him fear nothing, confront everything and, now and again, emerge victorious.

In sharp contrast, the old beast’s trump card — a lanky athlete who had soared to be crowned the best footballer plying his trade on the domestic front in the month he turned 20 before an adventure across the Limpopo turned into a nightmare forcing him to return to his roots —looked like a poorly cloned version of the original boy wonder from Highfield.

The more he tried, the more he failed, and in that mist of doubt where he was staggering in the darkness, it was difficult to believe that just four years earlier, at the age of 21, he had been a supremely confident young footballer who had been trusted by a German coach to captain his country in a World Cup qualifier in Egypt.

Five games into the new season, it was all about Yadah Stars and there was a lot to write and talk about them, a tough defence that was giving away nothing, conceding just one goal in 450 minutes, a victory over ZPC Kariba powered by the so-called Miracle Goal, a win over Ngezi Platinum that sent shock-waves and a point at Ascot where hosts Chapungu missed a penalty.

Leeroy Mavhunga, a fresh-faced teenager straight from his high school days at Harare’s Marlborough High, where those who follow junior football in this country very closely had already picked him out as one with the potential of making waves on the domestic scene, was running rings around defences with his pace and dribbling wizardry.

Two wins and three draws in five matches represented a good return for the newboys and they even basked in the sparkle of the robes that come with leading this marathon, something like the iconic Yellow Jersey in the Tour de France.

Yadah Stars were not only unbeaten, but were yet to concede a goal at home by the time they marched into a battle against a Dynamos side that was misfiring in those early stages of the campaign as they struggled to get into second gear after a pre-season dominated by uncertainty.

Was the club’s leader — Kenny Mubaiwa — going to stay or leave, as had happened midway through the previous season, before the board of directors went to the Harare businessman and sweet-talked him into having a change of mind and extending his leadership of the country’s biggest and most successful football club?

Was Lloyd Mutasa going to be given another chance to continue guiding this ship amid speculation that some of the leaders didn’t believe in his abilities to deliver the championship and with the scars and bitterness inflicted by bitter rivals CAPS United’s success story last year still yet to heal?

Would the club’s leaders, as was the case last year, gamble on a flirtation with a foreign coach when the embarrassment of their marriage-made-in-hell with a Portuguese prankster, disguised as a football gaffer, had misfired terribly with its effects still being felt?

An opening day defeat at the hands of FC Platinum didn’t help matters, a 2-2 away draw against Triangle appeared to represent a small improvement only for all that optimism to be washed away by a demoralising home defeat at the hands of a Black Rhinos which, back in the years when these Glamour Boys ruled the roost, was the team they loved to beat with fate punishing them for their sins of poaching some of the best DeMbare players at the army side’s formation.

An away victory over Hwange stopped the bleeding, and bought Mutasa time, but a morale-sapping defeat at the hands of How Mine at home, coupled with the miners coach Kelvin Kaindu mocking these Glamour Boys as the worst he had faced, was a brutal reminder of their shortcomings.

Something had to give and, amid this mini-crisis, one of the administrators of their biggest Facebook fan page, DeMbare DotComs, withdrew his backing for Mutasa.

No one knows what would have happened had Yadah Stars won that match at the National Sports Stadium on April 27, but it’s a fair call that, maybe, just maybe, it could have signalled the end of Mutasa’s latest romantic flirtation with the Glamour Boys.

However, captain Ocean Mushure, as he has played all season, led from the front as his free-kick skidded off the bumpy surface and beat goalkeeper Tafadzwa Dube for the only goal of a tight match in which the newboys, to be fair to them, were probably the better team during that contest.

And, just like that, it all changed for Dynamos — salvation time for Mutasa and his men and, 14 games later, they have only lost once, 1-3 away to FC Platinum, and won the bulk of their games that even Tonderai Ndiraya, whether he means it or he is, like Jose Mourinho before him, simply playing mind games, now says the Glamour Boys are favourites for the title.

They say the table doesn’t lie and, three points behind the leaders with two games in hand and wind blowing in their sails, Dynamos are the form team and, suddenly, Denver Mukamba has found his range, Ntouba is proving a great investment, Mushure is leading with distinction and, as they say in their world, the whole country is happy.

Yadah Stars was their turning point and, if they have to keep the momentum going, they also need to clear the hurdle which Prophet Walter Magaya’s men will erect before them at Rufaro tomorrow.

As Mutasa said yesterday, he doesn’t foresee an easy match where his men will score another half-a-dozen goals as was the case at Barbourfields on Thursday.

What isn’t in doubt, though, is that this time it’s the Miracle Boys who need a prayer and reports from their camp suggest they are not intimidated by facing this resurgent beast tomorrow.

Maybe, on such occasions, they can do with a Miracle Goal again, a Miracle Save here and there and a Miracle Victory.