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Yes, let’s celebrate Sundowns’ success story in the league, it deserves its place on the back pages of all the mainstream newspapers because our boys played their part, but let’s not drown ourselves in those celebrations because when we really take a very analytical look, at a league that is supposed to represent a step forward for our players, we will see that this is a league that defies all the logic.

back pages of mainstream daily newspapers in this country carried a celebratory, if not triumphant, tone on Thursday as they toasted Mamelodi Sundowns’ success as champions of South African football.

The local coverage of the return of the Brazilians to the top of Super Diski had an air of ownership, for that success story, with the domestic media highlighting the impact that Zimbabweans made in Sundowns’ triumph.

Khama Billiat brought the X-Factor in the opening stages of the campaign, providing both the star quality and cutting edge the team needed to stand toe-to-toe with its biggest rivals, before injuries wrecked what should have been a stand-out season.

His 90th-minute equaliser against Maritzburg United might have been forgotten by now, in the blaze of memories created by that 3-0 mauling of SuperSport United that confirmed victory in the championship race on Tuesday night, but every point was priceless and made the difference.

Cuthbert Malajila brought six goals, and the raw pace that the Brazilians attack needed to wear down opponents, and although he wasn’t always guaranteed a place in the starting XI, and battled his own injury demons, he made his mark on the campaign.

Esrom Nyandoro played a cameo role, in what could be the swansong season of a decade-long loyalty to Sundowns, but he was the lucky charm because, in all his eight appearances, the Brazilians won eight times.

Peter Ndlovu was recruited at the beginning of this campaign, went to the pre-season tour of Ghana, and received lavish praise from head coach, Pitso Mosimane, for bringing in that magical touch, gained from more than a decade of playing in the English top-flight, to the Brazilians’  technical crew.

Sundowns are the second team, with a huge Zimbabwean influence, to win the South African Premiership in as many years after Kaizer Chiefs, the big home of Warriors in Super Diski, won the league title last season.

A Zimbabwean international, Willard Katsande, is set to be named Footballer of the Year, on all fronts, in South Africa, winning the vote of the coaches, the vote of his fellow professionals and the vote of readers of Kick-Off magazine.

Almost 40 years to the time Ebson “Sugar” Muguyo arrived at Kaizer Chiefs from Zimbabwe Saints, and shared the Golden Boot in 1976 with the legendary Ace Ntshoelengoe after scoring 18 goals, Zimbabwean football stars continue to make a big, if not lasting, impression on South African football.

It’s understandable for us to celebrate Sundowns’ success in this country because there is Peter, there is Khama, there is Esrom and there is Malajila and it’s also easy for us to feel sorry for the team that will finish second in Super Diski because there is Willard, there is Knowledge, there is Matthew, there is Kingston and there is Zhaimu.

That the two South African clubs, who have led the way in investing in Zimbabwean talent over the past five years, Sundowns and Chiefs, have now turned themselves into the top sides in that country — with a big helping hand from our boys — is something that makes a lot of us feel very proud.

We tell each other that there is something special about us.
And we say it’s not ironic that the three clubs with the biggest investment in Zimbabwean playing personnel — Sundowns (five players, when we include those on loan, soon to become six with the arrival of Kuda Mahachi); Chiefs (six Zim boys, including those on loan) and Bidvest Wits (four Zim boys, even though their impact was limited) — will finish ONE, TWO, THREE in Super Diski this season.

Three weeks ago I reproduced an online conversation between some leading Zimbabwean sports voices, including three senior journalists, two based here and one in South Africa, in which the ‘poor’ quality of the domestic Premiership and its striking inferiority, when compared to the ‘stylish and captivating’ Super Diski, was a major underlying theme of that discussion.

But there is a sizeable constituency that also believes that Super Diski has had a profoundly negative impact on Zimbabwe football.
This is the constituency that has watched a number of players leave here, showing a lot of promise, only to run into old school coaches who believe football should be played differently and, gradually, they have sucked out their confidence, crippled them psychologically to the extent they begin to even doubt their talent and reduced them into zombies who should not trust their instincts but play like robots.

It’s this constituency that believes it’s not a coincidence that our repeated failure to return to the Nations Cup finals has come at a time when the Warriors have largely relied on players from Super Diski to take us back to the big festival.

That Bafana Bafana themselves have failed to qualify for the Nations Cup, playing in the tourney last year by virtue of being hosts, since last qualifying for the 2008 Afcon tournament in Ghana, appears to buttress the point being made by that constituency that there is something structurally flawed about football played in that country.

A League That Defies All The Logic
Ian Gorowa has called just six South Africa-based players for the tie in Tanzania, the smallest contingent of professionals based across the Limpopo drafted for a Nations Cup assignment for the Warriors in years, and while this isn’t by design, as injuries have kept many of them away, the fact remains that there will be a huge representation of home-based players against the Taifa Stars.

The jury, of course, is still out on whether the home-based players can deliver, when it comes to the real big assignments like the Nations Cup which, with all due respect, is a hurdle higher than the CHAN finals where a lot of the players drafted in by Gorowa made their mark in qualifying for the semi-finals in South Africa in January.

But something just doesn’t sound right, when you analyse the latest Absa Premiership campaign, especially against a background that this is a league that woos talent from across large parts of sub-Saharan Africa and, of late, we have even seen some European players also coming through.

Sundowns’ skipper, Alje Schut, is a Dutchman who played 13 seasons for FC Utrecht in the Eredivisie, the top-flight league of the Netherlands, where Bafana Bafana star Thulani Serero has just helped Ajax Amsterdam win the championship.

The leading goal-scorer in the Absa Premiership, whose 10-month campaign comes to an end today, is Bafana Bafana forward Bernard Parker and he has scored just 10 goals, going into his team’s final match.

Parker hasn’t scored a league goal for three months, his last goal came on February 19 when Chiefs beat Bloemfontein 3-0, but despite a goal drought that has stretched through the whole of March, the whole of April and right into May, the Bafana Bafana forward hasn’t been overtaken in the race for the Golden Boot.

Ten goals, in 10 months, is an average of one goal per every month, and when the best striker in the league scores, an average of just one goal every month of the campaign, you understand the concerns among that constituency who cautioned that our celebrations of Sundowns’ success story this week, and the part our boys played in that achievement, shouldn’t be hysterical.

The leading scorer at Sundowns is Katlego Mashego, with seven goals, and when you add Malajila’s six goals, it means that the two top scorers at the champions have scored a combined total of just 13 goals, in 10 months, leading into their final league match this weekend against Maritzburg United.

Malajila scored the final goal in the 3-0 win over SuperSport United, which secured the championship on Tuesday night, taking it with all the composure expected of such a veteran gunslinger, but that ended a barren run that had started when he scored in the 3-1 win over Platinum Stars in March.

The top three scorers at Sundowns, Mashego (seven), Malajila (six) and the revitalised Teko Modise (six) have a combined tally of 19 goals, which falls short of the 20-goal mark, even though they played a combined total of 62 league matches this season.

Musona, who returned to Super Diski this season after two frustrating years in the Bundesliga where he struggled to adjust, and make an impact, will end his loan season with just eight league goals to his credit and has only been on target twice since the mid-season break.

Interestingly, Tendai Ndoro, who only started to play for Mpumalanga Black Aces this year, after a delay in securing his clearance, has scored six league goals — as many as Malajila has scored in 21 appearances — and has already caught up with Nkatha who also has half-a-dozen goals to his name this season.

The leading goal-scorer in the league at Orlando Pirates, who were champions two years ago, is midfielder Oupa Manyisa and has just four goals to his credit all season while Thanduyise Khuboni, a defensive midfielder for unfashionable Golden Arrows, could win the Golden Boot if he scores a flurry of goals this weekend, and the leading contenders fail, because he is sitting on eight and most of them have come from his role as his team’s penalty specialist.

Khama has four league goals all season and, if we look at the goal return of our leading strikers who were there from the beginning of the season in the Absa Premiership this season, we will see that the four of them have scored a combined 24 goals (Musona eight, Malajila six, Nkhatha six).

It’s not only our boys who have struggled to get goals in Super Diski, even the homeboys have found the going tough.
And when the cancer is so widespread, maybe those who are saying that there is something structurally flawed about this league, those who are saying our celebrations marking Sundowns’ success should also take into consideration the grim statistics about the reality of the quality, or rather lack of it, of that league, have a point.

If Khama is scoring only four league goals, all season, what guarantees do we have then that he can come and deliver those goals for us in the Warriors’ colours, when Kingston has just scored six goals, all season, how then do we expect him to suddenly burst into a goal-scoring machine for the Warriors?

When all our leading players in Super Diski fail, throughout the season, to break the double-figure mark, in terms of goals scored over a period of 10 months, why then do we suddenly have all the optimism that, in the next month when the 2015 Nations Cup qualifiers are held, goals will flow freely from our star men?

Yes, let’s celebrate Sundowns’ success story in the league, it deserves its place on the back pages of all the mainstream newspapers because our boys played their part, but let’s not drown ourselves in those celebrations because when we really take a very analytical look, at a league that is supposed to represent a step forward for our players, we will see that this is a league that defies all the logic.

Of course, I know they will throw brickbats at me and say that why then did Simba Sithole fail, not once but twice, why hasn’t the other Simba Sithole made an impact, why hasn’t Denver Mukamba made an impact, why had Rodreck Mutuma failed?

But that’s precisely my point, fellows, that there is something wrong with Super Diski football and that’s the reason its celebrated stars like Siphiwe Tshabalala can only be good enough for that theatre, and nowhere else, and in that reality show, disguised as football, our players have been drowned, turned into robots, and the little substance they had when they arrived there has been sucked out of their system.

We might try to find comfort in denial but the common denominator will not go away and it’s not a coincidence that the two big nations that draw the majority of their playing staff from this Super Diski pool, the Warriors and Bafana Bafana, have NOT QUALIFIED for the Nations Cup in the past six years, eight years, you name it.

Yes, Bafana Bafana played at the 2013 Nations Cup finals, as hosts by the way, not as a team that had qualified for the tournament.
Bothwell Mahlengwe Beginning To Earn His Stripes

When we decided, a few months back, to bring in someone who had played in the domestic Premiership, went on to manage a football club and has a background as a banker, with a university degree to back his qualifications, to be a weekly football columnist for us, who could give a different angle divorced from newsroom influence, we weren’t so sure if it would work out.

But Bothwell Mahlengwe has, within a short space of time, created a loyal following who look forward to his Friday football blog in this newspaper and he has been helped, to a large extent, by the fact that he hasn’t shied from controversy and has been scathing in his criticism and fair in his comment. Crucially, he has also declared his interests, he is a Dynamos fan, and joins John Mokwetsi, Mako Mutimukulu, Mike Madoda and Barry Manandi among the local football analysts who have come out in the open to tell the country which club they support but, refreshingly, retain a presence of mind to be critical of their beloved teams when they fall short.

His analysis of the poisonous politics at that club, a gentle giant with immense potential but one that appears eternally fated to remain a pathetic and poor franchise that will never benefit from its awesome brand, and savaged a board that has failed, an executive that could do more and a technical team that should do more, was spot on. It was refreshing to realise the huge traffic that his piece generated on the social media platforms and, crucially, the praise he received from a lot of people for his no-holds-barred approach to the problems that have been stalking the Glamour Boys.

Callisto Pasuwa has won three straight league titles at Dynamos but what has the club done, in return, to make him a better coach, in all these years, to ensure that his knowledge base doesn’t remain stagnant because you can’t expect him to keep conquering without upgrading his coaching credentials.

Dynamos finished level with Highlanders on points last season but Bosso have been unwavering, in their support of Kelvin Kaindu as he boosts his coaching credentials in England, and you can see that this is a club that is investing for a better tomorrow, creating the system to ensure there is an improvement on what they did last year. It’s sad that Pasuwa continues to work in an environment where he doesn’t feel secure, where guarantees about his future can’t be given, where he keeps getting this feeling that his bosses are waiting for him to make just a mistake, or go through a barren spell, to get the excuse to get rid of him. Mahlengwe got it right that the board, the executive and the coach, who also needs to appreciate that, for all his success, he remains answerable to someone at the club, especially his chairman, all need to look at themselves in the mirror and they will see that they have a responsibility to work, and also unite, for the sake of their club.

Well done Bothwell, no one is bigger than your club, not even the so-called founding fathers, and it’s a shame that its potential, which can be converted into a commercial giant to rival even Econet, might never be realised because of a selfish and confused clique of individuals.

Too Bad Yaya Isn’t White
Yaya Toure said recently that he doesn’t get the recognition he deserves because he is an African player and you feel he has a point, especially when the English Football Writers vote that Steve Gerrard had a better season than the Ivorian giant.

Yes, Stevie G was the heartbeat of a great Liverpool revival that, unfortunately, might not end with them getting to the Promised Land but, given where this franchise was a year ago, a stunning revolution all the same worth every celebration that will accompany what Rodgers and his team did this season.

But to suggest that Stevie G did better than the colossal called Yaya, the heart and soul of the Manchester City machine that is likely to win its second league title in three years tomorrow, is not only an insult to the spirit of Fair Play but clearly borders on racism on the basis that Toure is nothing but just a boy from Africa.

However, you can’t keep a good man down, whether you give him awards of excellence or you don’t, and on Wednesday night, Toure held the world spellbound with a storming run, in the last minute of the match, starting in his own half and then ending it all with a gem of a goal, his team’s 100th of the season .

Yaya is only the second central midfielder, after Frank Lampard in 2009-10, to score 20+ goals in a single English Premiership season, and while they might not honour him with individual awards, we know, don’t we, that he is a football genius and, this season, he took his game to another level.

With midfielders who can score 20 plus goals in the English Premiership, you can go to the World Cup, just like what Cote d’Ivoire are doing, but when your leading strikers struggle to get 10 goals, in Super Diski, you know that you have to struggle just to be at the Nations Cup finals — whether you are Bafana Bafana or you are the Warriors.

To God Be The Glory!

Come on United !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Chicharitooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!

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