IT’S rather easy to forget now, in the depression of the darkness brought by a spate of recent poor results, that we used to have a troop of home-based Warriors who once went for a very good 16 international games without defeat. As we survey the wreckage of a failed Cosafa Cup defensive mission and a CHAN qualifying campaign that now perilously hangs by a thread, it’s hard to believe that we once had a team, not so long ago, of home-based players, which went for 32 months, without losing an international match.

For those who are wizards of mathematics, that’s a good two-and-a-half years plus, or you could convert it into something like 24 hours of football or, if you like the big numbers, that’s a cool 1 440 minutes of soccer as the Americans will prefer to call it, without losing an international match.

Between May 4 2008 and February 5 2011, our home-based Warriors scripted a beautiful story, a marathon unbeaten run that remains a record for us in international football but one that hasn’t been given the credit that it deserves by the men and women we task with the responsibility of both keeping, and glorifying, such magical moments.

It eclipsed the record unbeaten run, in international matches, of 13 matches by the super side that would later evolve into the Dream Team, from April 14, 1991 to April 24, 1993, stretching over 13 Nations Cup and World Cup qualifiers, in which the Warriors won seven games, drew six and lost none.

The record 16-match unbeaten run by the band of home-based Warriors included 11 matches in the African Nations Championships, unbeaten in the qualifying campaign for the 2009 and 2011 CHAN tournaments, unbeaten at the 2009 CHAN finals in Cote d’Ivoire and unbeaten in the 2009 Cosafa Cup finals.

Today, as we adjust to the brutal reality that we are no longer Cosafa Cup champions, and juggle with the possibility that we could, FOR THE FIRST TIME, fail to qualify for the CHAN finals should results not go our way in Ndola this afternoon, that battalion of home-based troops who turned their defiance into an art of how not to lose matches, look like Warriors from a distant past.

But the truth is that all this good stuff was happening just five years ago, in our quest to qualify for our first CHAN tournament, just four years ago, when we played at our first CHAN finals and also won the Cosafa Cup, just three years ago when we battled to qualify for our second CHAN tourney and just two years ago when we arrived in Sudan for our second CHAN finals.

So, one can understand really, when the fans who went through all that begin to ask what has gone wrong, how is it possible that a team like Mauritius can come here and steal a draw at Rufaro, how come our home-based players have become so average, to the point of being ordinary, they can barely send shivers down a team of part-timers from the Indian Ocean island?

The same fans are right when they ask, in bars and in restaurants, in salons and in churches, at what point did we lose the focus, at what stage did the train go off the rails, at what stage did our home-based players become so average, to the point of being ordinary, they can no longer bury Indian Ocean part timers in our backyard?

Something has been happening to our football and whatever it is, the picture doesn’t look good, and a closer analysis on the players, in our Premiership, provides a frightening reminder that there has been a sudden malfunction in the reproductive system that used to give us players of a decent quality, like those home-based Warriors who went for 16 international matches without a loss.

In our world of denial, uncomfortable with living with the suffocating reality that someone apparently destroyed the nursery from where they used to grow and develop our decent quality footballers, we have staggered from one blame game to another and from one blame object to the other.

Yes, the majority of our football leaders are absolute rubbish, so horrible to such an extent that suggesting they were plucked from hell would be making them look honourable, when the reality is that they are nothing but horrible.

To pray for their rehabilitation, expecting that they will wake up tomorrow as better administrators, is as hopeless, if not downright foolish, as applying lipstick to a bull frog and hoping that it will somehow boost its chances of winning the Miss World beauty pageant for animals.

Our plight, too, hasn’t been helped in any way by some shocking appointments, like the recruitment of amateur coaches like Klaus-Dieter Pagels to try and cut their milk teeth in the world of international football coaching, somehow at the ripe age of 63, plucking them from obscurity and giving them the licence to experiment with our flagship national football team.

But while criticism has been heaped, with justification, on the game’s leadership, the national team coaches for their shortcomings, the football writers for their lack of attention to detail and their tendency to turn themselves into shameless public relations agents for the association rather than serious critics of a national game struggling for breath on its deathbed, the fans for turning against their players when things aren’t going well, one crucial arm has been left untouched.

Our players have somehow been given the immunity, for one reason or another, to escape the scrutiny that should follow every touch, every move, every run, especially when they wear the green and gold of the national team, and we have somehow celebrated when mediocrity has been airlifted from nowhere and turned into Warriors.

The CHAN Mission That Looks Gloomy
Today, the home-based Warriors are in Ndola for a date against Zambia and we all pray that Ian Gorowa and his men will weather the storm at the Levy Mwanawasa, which Chipolopolo have turned into a fortress, and get the positive result that we all want for us to qualify for the 2014 CHAN finals, which will maintain our proud record of making every finals of this tournament.

The Zambians have the advantage, having the psychological boost of having won the two teams’ last encounter at the same venue in the Cosafa Cup final last month, and emerging out of the contest at Rufaro without serious scars although the window that they left open, where an away goal for the Warriors counts double, means that this game is a lot closer than it looks.

Somehow, against all odds, I’m inclined to believe that Gorowa and his men will get the result that they need to go through, whether it’s a scoring draw that gives them the tie on away goals rule or an outright victory is irrelevant, and you just get the feeling that the Zambians will fall on their sword of bloated confidence that borders on arrogance.

After failing our thousands of fans, resident in South Africa, by pressing the self-destruction button in Luanda, and throwing away a 2013 Nations Cup ticket, in six minutes of extreme madness, which had appeared secured in Harare, one feels we need to repay them, in a small way, by qualifying for the CHAN and giving them their own team to support come next January.

But even if we sail past the Zambians this afternoon, that success won’t mask the fact that the quality of the players that we have in our Premiership has gone a rung lower, if not two rungs lower, when compared to what we used to have just four years ago when we were Cosafa Cup champions and when we qualified for two straight CHAN finals.

I looked at the team of home-based Warriors that played in our first CHAN match against Namibia, five years ago under Valinhos, and realised that eight of those players – Arubi, Jambo, Sweswe, Gutu, Matawu, Sadomba, Chikwaikwai and Mwanjali – went on to play football in foreign leagues.

I look around the domestic Premiership today and I see that the leading goal-scorer, Tendai Ndoro, who is the first-choice forward of the home-based Warriors, is a player who four years ago, when these men were dominating the local top-flight league, could not fit but only play in the Botswana league and that tells me something.

I check the name of the player in second position, on the goal-scorers’ charts, and I see that it’s Jacob Muzokomba, the same man who played for Lancashire Steel in 2005, eight years ago, went to play fantasy football in Swaziland, came back home last year, went down with Hardbody only to resurface at Buffaloes and that tells me something.

I check who Black Rhinos have turned to during the mid-season window, in their hope to get goals, and I see that it’s 38-year-old Gilbert Mushangazhike, a journeyman who made his debut for Fire Batteries exactly 20 years ago, before taking his career to Germany, South Africa and China and that tells me something.

I check who Black Mambas have turned to during the mid-season transfer window, in their hope to boost their attack, and I see it’s Evans Gwekwerere, a man struggling to put his career back on track after the heights scaled seven years ago, and it tells me something.
Washington Pakamisa, a championship winner eight years ago before injuries wrecked his career to the extent that they even started writing the epitaph on his career, has somehow reinvented himself to become the main striker at Dynamos.

Dominic Chungwa, who was playing for Eagles three years ago before spending last season in Division One at Hippo Valley, has somehow reinvented himself, at the age of 27, to become the leading light in the CAPS United attack.

That Beavan Chikaka, who was forced to retreat to Botswana three years ago when the domestic Premiership was brimming with quality, can return and, at the age of 29, convert himself as the point man in the strikeforce for a team as big as Highlanders tells me a story of a game that is not in good health.

And I hear that Bosso have turned to Master Masitara, remember him, he has been somewhere in Botswana, to boost their attack during this midweek transfer window and I won’t be surprised either, with the way things are going, if he makes a success story of his return to the Premiership.

My point is that we can succeed in Ndola today, qualify for the CHAN finals, but the reality is that something has gone terribly wrong with the nursery, the production line, which used to roll out outstanding footballers for us in the past and, somehow, there is no fresh talent, no fresh-faced teenagers coming on board and bringing both the excitement and the promise that the long-term prospects of our national game are secure.

Right now, no matter what happens in Ndola this afternoon, it all looks gloomy.
And Even Our Big Stars Aren’t Exploding

The major leagues of Europe are up and running again and one thing that immediately catches your attention, if you really care about our national game, is the absence of players from this country in the real leagues where real football is played and real footballers are developed into outstanding athletes. I saw the two South Africans, Steven Pienaar for Everton and Kagiso Dikgacoi of Crystal Palace, playing on the first weekend of the English Premiership, Zambian forward Emmanuel Mayuka was not used by Southampton in their win at West Brom but Jacob Mulenga could be coming to the Premiership before the window closes.

In the first weekend of the German Bundesliga, I saw that Gabonese striker Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang scored a hattrick for giants Borussia Dortmund on his debut in that league after his move from France, more goals in just one game than Knowledge Musona scored in two miserable years in Germany.

While Musona, who is our best player by a mile, has retreated to the comfort space of the retirement zone of Super Diski, where there is absolutely no value that is likely to be added to his game, Mayuka has chosen to continue to battle for his place at Southampton rather than come to play for Orlando Pirates, dominate the scene, but get no value addition.

Khama Billiat’s attempts to go into either Russia or Belgium have stalled and he has inked a five-year deal at Mamelodi Sundowns, Onismor Bhasera is also back there in South Africa, every time Simba Sithole appears to take one big step forward, he takes five steps backwards, Denver Mukamba has struggled to set Super Diski alight while there has been no movement, really, in terms of taking steps forwards, in the careers of Archford Gutu and Ovidy Karuru.

It all looks gloomy for us.
Question And Answer Of The Week
“This one is for Robson Sharuko. After Orlando Pirates humiliated Egyptian giants Al Ahly 4-1 and Zamalek 3-0 (in fact Ahly lost 0-3 and Zamalek lost 1-4), do you still think our league is better than Supa Diski? And the return of Benjani Mwaruwari, Knowledge Musona and Onismor Bhasera to Supa Diski, does it still make it inferior?” – W. Ndawana, Harare, H-Metro Feedback Column, Thursday, August 22, 2013.

Answer – Good question Ndawana, I guess it’s pretty clear now that Super Diski is stronger than our domestic Premiership, by a distance I’m afraid to say, and if you read what I have been talking about on this blog today, you can see that I’m addressing exactly the same issue.

The challenge is on all of us to sort out our football and it won’t be addressed by success, if we get it, in Ndola today but putting the interests of our national game first, investing in our juniors and knowing that there is more to national teams than just the senior side.

To God Be The Glory
Come on United!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Chicharitoooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!

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