Vusumuzi Dube
Lovemore Dube
PLAYERS are not any coach’s traveling luggage.
Zimbabwe Soccer Coaches Association (Zisca) secretary-general Oscar Mazhambe has decried some of his members’ insistence on their former players.
He said the habit is not good for the development of the game. It has become a habit for coaches to turn back on old horses they have worked with before. The habit raises eyebrows on the football business end and ethical conduct of coaches according to Mazhambe.
“We do not condone this type of behaviour. It should not have room in modern football. As coaches we have to develop players and it starts with us working with material we find at the club. If we bring our own players we are risking developing those few or those staying mediocre if they learnt wrong things in our previous engagement as player and coach at another club. Players are not luggage, we insist on that to our coaches every time we have training courses,” said Mazhambe.
Mazhambe said it is in the syllabus for coaches when they begin their training under a topic The Principles of a Good Coach.
“We look at the behaviour of a coach on and off the field. Coaches must be role models not what we hear at times that Coach So and So has made a move and is taking a third of the team along with him. It leaves one to ask whether we are developing or have other underlying issues,” said Mazhambe.
Local coaches have been accused of acting as agents of players and getting monetary rewards from those that they would have brought to the clubs.
It is common to find permanent substitutes at clubs a situation that leaves fans and management fighting with gaffers. Mazhambe challenged coaches to be professional and pride in developing new talent than carrying their “baggage” along. Some of the players eventually expose the coaches by failing to deliver because they will be past their prime or simply mediocre.
“When you talk about the principles of a good coach these are part of things which we cover, which is Level One. I am surprised with our coaches even at Caf Level they are still doing wrong things, when we are saying these coaches are coming in as supporters and are trained to be coaches they lose these principles where some coaches are carrying around players from Point A to Point B.
“It means these coaches have no trust in what they have built in players. What is it a coach moves around with players, what is it they are hiding what is it he taking to the next? It means when he gets to the next team he is going to have the same player, when he moves again he takes all these players to the next team there is no development there,” lamented Mazhambe.
In a related manner, Bulawayo Chiefs were stunned when star right wingback busani Rusinga did not turn up for training on Thursday. The Bulawayo club established later in the day that under the cover of darkness a Sheasham FC coach allegedly took the boy to Gweru.
Chiefs spokesperson Thulani “Javas” Sibanda confirmed on Thursday that the boy was not at training.
Asked for comment Sheasham coach Lizwe Sweswe could neither deny nor confirm.
“They are crazy. How can I steal a player, do they even know where the boy came from?” charged Sweswe on Thursday.
Rusinga is a former Talen Vision FC player who moved to Chiefs with Sweswe alongside William Stima and Kuda Musharu. It is not wrong for a coach to believe in a particular player he has worked with before but when the supposed star fails to deliver eyebrows are raised on the “luggage.”
Online Reporter