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SHARUKO ON SATURDAY
TIME indeed flies and on Monday a year would have passed since that glorious afternoon when our Warriors finally ended a decade-long wait for another dance with continental football aristocracy.

On June 5 last year, a three-goal demolition of Malawi at the National Sports Stadium secured our boys a third AFCON finals ticket — their first privilege pass for the biggest African football festival in 10 years — with the mission completed with a game to spare in the campaign.

Musona, having married his sweetheart Daisy a few days earlier, won and converted a penalty to ease the nerves, his decision to go for power and precision rather than the Panenka he had scored in the previous game, probably inspired by the significance of an occasion where there was no room for error, let alone comedy.

Khama volleyed home the insurance goal, connecting the ball with a sweet touch of genius, before substitute Malajila completed the rout.

And, as the country feted them like kings as they bathed in the sunshine of being the only men standing, amid the wreckage of a Southern African disastrous campaign, Musona could finally get the chance he needed to go away on a honeymoon he had postponed for a national cause.

In 18 days’ time, God willing, the fellow we call the Smiling Assassin will celebrate his 27th birthday and it’s hard to believe the boy wonder with those facial features of innocence that can hardly frighten a church mouse, who exploded on the scene just a few years ago, has quickly turned into a man.

For Musona, the boy from Norton who has evolved into this talismanic footballer for his country, the passage of time has also brought with it the gift of Knowledge.

When FIFA announced on their official website on December 7, 2010, that a new Zimbabwean football hero had arrived on the big stage, their announcement didn’t trigger a wave of excitement on a continent still struggling to shake off the hangover of having been the generation that finally saw the World Cup roadshow rolling into Africa for the first time.

Just five months had passed since the coronation of Spain as the world champions, on that bitterly cold night in Johannesburg, and Africa was still torn between the need to celebrate its successful hosting of the World Cup or cursing Luis Suarez whose “Hand of the Devil’’ had conspired to rob the continent of its finest football hour.

For those whose memories have limited data capacity or, for the sake of the generation of boys and girls born after that abomination at Soccer City on July 2, 2010, Suarez deliberately handled on the goal-line to stop Dominic Adiyah’s goal-bound header, in the last play of extra-time, was summarily dismissed, but his actions brought his country a lifeline in a brazen display of those dark moments when vice triumphs over virtue in this beautiful game.

Given all this drama, there was a lot for a continent still in mourning, to digest and probably pay attention to that FIFA announcement, on their official website in December that year, of the arrival of a new Zimbabwean football hero.

“When Zimbabwe talisman Benjamin Mwaruwari, otherwise known as Benjani, quit international football, some wondered who would be the successor,’’ FIFA said.

“However, those in the know had already predicted the new king in the form of a stocky, fast youngster named Knowledge Musona.

“Such enlarged predictions, although they carry romance and promise, can be dangerous to a youngster’s career, but Musona is aware of the work that still has to be done (for a striker) with a boyish innocence in his smile that belies a ruthlessness in front of goal for both his club, Kaizer Chiefs, and country, the Warriors of Zimbabwe.

“Musona might not have the star power of Benjani in his native land, nor the prolific scoring record of another Zimbabwe attacking legend, Peter Ndlovu, but he has a rare streak of confidence that comes with a striker hungry to make his mark, a natural, a diamond whose shine has yet to be fully found in the rough.’’

THE ROUGH DIAMOND WE PICKED AND SICKENLY UNDERVALUED

It’s a measure of our football community’s fascination with negativity that our story that Oscar Machapa had fled his base in the DRC, for security reasons, attracted more interest and hits on this newspaper’s website than the one we did, on the same day, related to the announcement of the man who will lead the Warriors when we begin the quest to qualify for the 2019 Nations Cup finals next Sunday.

As at a minute to midnight on Wednesday, the story on Machapa had generated 12 444 hits on this newspaper’s website with far more hits than Mapeza’s announcement that the next Warriors’ skipper will be named next week which had 6 893 hits.

Maybe, our fascination with negativity explains why there has been more debate on why Malajila, Katsande, Rusike and Mushekwi were omitted from the Warriors squad than Khama’s commitment to come to try and play for his country, even when chances are that he might not be fully fit for that adventure, with the forward ready to smash the pain barriers for the sake of his nation.

Or, the commitment by Musona to come and continue his love affair with the Warriors, even when some had painted a toxic landscape and suggested most of the foreign-based players were going to boycott the game against Liberia in protest over the omission of their colleagues from the squad.

That Musona even suggested he would pay for his airfare, travelling business class from Brussels to Frankfurt and then to Johannesburg and to Harare, for the sake of plunging back into the trenches of serving his nation once again, didn’t pass for an advertisement of commitment to the national cause, among many, which deserved both praise and to be told.

But, then, that is exactly us, isn’t it?

A people who will deliberately try to fish out for any negatives from Prophet Walter Magaya’s decision to extend a helping hand to the Warriors and, by extension his country, by providing the team with a luxurious base at his hotel complex, free of charge, giving them the food their chef requested which he cooks in the same hotel’s kitchen, giving them a ground for their training sessions and even a dry cleaner for their laundry.

No guests allowed to deflect the boys’ attention, as is usually the case when they camp at the various city hotels where a flood of people are either milling around in the foyer or in the corridors leading to their hotel rooms, but a proper five-star facility where it’s all about football and nothing else.

For, if we really cared for our heroes, and gave them the appreciation they deserve, maybe we could have given Musona the rock star treatment he deserves, for what he has done for his country, because — if you really look at the statistics of his adventure with the Warriors — you will find a truly wonderful story of a football artist who deserves more than what he gets in terms of appreciation.

And, as our Smiling Assassin, the boy from Norton we have watched grow into this man return home to begin another battle on the AFCON battlefields, I couldn’t help, but feel that this fellow has probably been given a raw deal by a domestic football family he has served with distinction.

Since fate has scripted that Musona’s next battle, in the colours of his country, should be against the very country that he first fought against in his Nations Cup adventure, and against whom he scored his first AFCON goal, I thought maybe the football gods are providing us with a reminder of how ungrateful a people we are.

And, against that background, I decided I might not be entirely out of place to use this occasion to not only salute him, but also highlight why he deserves more than what we have given him in terms of honouring him for how well he has led from the front when it comes to our Warriors in the past seven years.

PROBABLY ONE OF THE GREATEST STORIES NEVER TOLD

Just nine months after FIFA announced the arrival of Musona on the big stage, he plunged into his first AFCON assignment as a raw 21-year-old forward tasked with leading the line for his country and doing what Agent Sawu had done, for the Dream Team, or King Peter had done for this country throughout his career.

And it took just half-an-hour for Musona to announce his arrival on the big stage of the Nations Cup, as foretold by FIFA on the cyber pages of their website, as our boy wonder powered his Warriors into the lead in Monrovia on September 5, 2010, in our first 2012 AFCON qualifier against the very Liberians we will play next weekend.

By the end of those qualifiers, in which he missed the game against Liberia at home through injury, Musona had scored four goals — including a memorable double against Mali on June 5, 2011, at Rufaro in a 2-1 win for the Warriors — to complete the campaign just two goals behind Tunisia’s Issam Jemma who topped the scoring charts with six goals.

He scored in three of the four matches he played during that campaign and his absence, through a shoulder injury, in the away game in Mali — which the Warriors lost 0-1 — proved decisive.

But, for me, it’s the quality of the players who were bracketed with him on four goals in that campaign, which was special and which I feel for a raw 21-year-old, in his first AFCON qualifying campaign, should have earned him more credit than what he received in probably writing one of the greatest stories never told.

The great Samuel Eto’o, Moussa Sow, the guy you saw scoring that beauty with an overhead kick for Fenerbahce against Manchester United in the Europa Cup, Pappis Cisse, who would go on to play for Newcastle United, also had four goals in that campaign.

Also, bracketed in that group with four goals in that campaign was the great Didier Drogba who, six months later would score the equaliser and winning penalty in the UEFA Champions League for Chelsea against Bayern Munich.

To imagine that just seven years earlier Musona was a mere Form One schoolboy in Norton while Drogba was being signed by Chelsea for a club record £24 million (about US$30 million) fee, making him the most expensive Ivorian player back then, and now they were both in the same bracket, having finished the 2012 AFCON qualifying campaign with four goals each, is simply incredible.

To just imagine that Musona, in his maiden AFCON qualifying campaign, scored as many goals as Drogba who, a year later, would be named Chelsea’s greatest ever player in a poll of 20 000 fans conducted by Chelsea Magazine, and would then go on to sign a deal with Galatasaray where he got €4 million signing-on fee plus a basic wage of €4 million per season and a cool €15 000 per match, is just incredible.

To imagine that, at just 21, our boy wonder ended his first AFCON qualifying campaign with the same number of goals as an elite group of footballers who, together, have been traded for more than US$200 million in their careers, with one of them, Eto’o even earning €20 million (after taxes) per season in Russia, tells you this incredible story that was never written.

To imagine that our boy scored more goals, in that campaign, than Gervinho, Wilfried Boigny, Ikechukwu Uche, Asamoah Gyan, Andre Ayew, Demba Ba and Obafemi Martins should tell you something about this beautiful story.

Try to consider this incredible story that for FOUR years, between 2010 and May 2014, Musona was the only Warrior to score in an away World Cup/Nations Cup qualifier with all our four goals, in the nine matches we played on the road during that period, coming from the boot of the Smiling Assassin.

He scored in the 1-1 draw against Liberia in the opening 2012 AFCON qualifier in Monrovia, scored in the 1-2 defeat at the hands of Cape Verde in Praia, scored the only goal against Burundi in Bujumbura in a 2013 AFCON qualifier and the only goal in Alexandria against Egypt in a 2014 World Cup — the best performance by a Warrior on foreign territory over such a period.

Of course, being us, others will say, but we failed in those battles, of course we did, but can you blame him for the sins of a toxic ZIFA leadership that crippled the Warriors’ preparations for the decisive 2012 AFCON home qualifier against Cape Verde by smuggling in Tom Saintfiet into the coaching team and, when the Belgian was deported, somehow settling for an arrangement where both Mapeza and Madinda were named co-coaches?

We drew that game 0-0, the only point Cape Verde picked on the road away from home in those qualifiers and, if we had beaten them by more than a goal — as happened when they travelled to Mali or even Liberia — we would have ended the campaign, which we finished two points short of group winners Mali, as the group winners.

And, as if he was on a mission to prove such critics wrong, he top-scored for us as we qualified for Gabon and, without him there in our first two matches, we lacked a cutting edge and when he came in for the last game, even clearly half-fit, he showed his class with probably the best goal a Warrior has scored at the AFCON finals in the 2-4 defeat at the hands of Tunisia.

But, worry not gallant Warrior and, in the week that a prophet provided your team with a plush base to camp as in preparation for the game against Liberia, maybe a reading of Matthew 13:54, when our Lord Jesus Christ tells us about prophets and honour could provide some comfort.

“Coming to His hometown, He began teaching the people in their synagogue and they were amazed: ‘Where did this man get this wisdom and these miraculous powers?’ they asked. ‘Isn’t this the carpenter’s son? Isn’t His mother’s name Mary and aren’t His brothers James, Simon and Judas? Aren’t his sisters with us? When then did this Man get all these things?’ And they took offence at Him.

“And then Jesus said to them, ‘A prophet is not without honour except in his own town and his own home.’ And He didn’t do many miracles there because of their lack of faith.’’

You can also cross check with Mark 6:1, which also deals with our Lord’s rejection in Nazareth, Luke 4:24 which tells us, “Truly, I tell you, no prophet is accepted in his hometown,’’ or even John 4:44 which tells us, “Now, he Himself had testified that a prophet has no honour in his own country.’’

Welcome home Warrior, the diamond whose value we seemingly never appreciate, whose greatness will never be told here.

TO GOD BE THE GLORY!

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

Rashfooooooooooooord!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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