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Tadious Manyepo Sports Reporter
FORMER Warriors star striker Shingi Kawondera believes Zimbabwe is at par with world heavyweights Brazil when it comes to raw football talent.
But the general neglect for grassroots development, according to Kawondera, is hampering the country from scaling potentially dizzy heights which the likes of Brazil have reached.
Kawondera, who was instrumental in the Warriors’ qualification for the 2006 African Cup of Nations held in Egypt, said stakeholders should prioritise junior development if the country is to fully realise its potential.
The former striker played club football in different countries, including Poland and Cyprus, and he is currently running his own nursery, the Shingi Kawondera Academy.
“I believe more money should be channelled towards grassroots development where players can be identified and placed in an enabling set-up where they can be moulded into stars,” said Kawondera.
“If you can only find time and go around seeing how much talented our kids are, you will see there is need to put more resources in the junior ranks.
“I tell you, I played in several countries and I have also been to so many countries but get me right, I honestly think Zimbabwe and Brazil, in terms of talent, are at par, the only difference being that the latter make every effort to nurture their talent while the former do the opposite.”
At a time when various fame-seeking people are increasingly sponsoring amateur tournaments from which no players have been picked for further development, Kawondera said those people should instead consider putting resources into grassroots development.
“I believe Zimbabwe has so much talent which just needs proper development and we will be talking of winning even the World Cup. I have been following some of these trends in which some members of the society have been doing some great initiatives, sponsoring amateur tournaments. That is good recreation but we should look at the bigger picture. Are we taking these youngsters from those tournaments and placing them in a right environment where they can be further developed? That is what we should be doing.
“Look at how Zimbabwean players are able to dribble even without proper development and compare them with other countries who spend a fortune developing their players.
“We have everything, we can trap (the ball), dribble but we lack the cohesion, the fighting spirit and the perfection needed. We don’t have the stamina; we don’t really value that . . . we have so many gaps in our development system.
“Look at some of our players whom you know. They have everything, but look at their stamina, it means the everything will count for nothing because they were not properly developed at the right stage.”
Kawondera said the smaller details matter and a lot needs to be done to develop complete players in this country.
“What I am basically saying is our training structures are still amateurish, we need to be professional, we need psychological training, we should also put emphasis on what the players should eat when they are still very young.
“If we don’t inculcate that unto our players, we are not developing anything. Just look at the number of our players who are failing to cope up with South African leagues. Some fail because they don’t know what to eat and they end up becoming overweight because we wouldn’t have taught them on the do’s and don’ts.
“Those small things matter, just having enough sleep, we don’t value that. Players should be taught on those things. We should be very careful; the most critical stage is the 16-18 years’ age-group. The transition from schools’ football and academies to professional, that should also be managed carefully.”
Online Reporter