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charm hearts with John Chibadura and The Tembo Brothers’ old hit song, “Mudiwa Jennet”.

IN his moment of weakness, surveying the wreckage of a dream that now lay in tatters, Jose Mourinho reminded the world that he was human, after all, and beyond his relentless pursuit of greatness he also yearned, just like all of us, to be loved.

Some say he is the greatest football coach the world has ever known but while I have my reservations about that, those who believe in that still retain my respect because there is a lot of substance to back their beliefs that the Special One is, indeed, the finest.

On Tuesday night, the Special One came short, in his battle to turn Europe’s greatest football club, in terms of Champions League titles won, into the kings of the continent once again and while, in the end it was agonisingly close, the brutal reality of it all was that, just like a miss, it was as good as a mile.

Two straight failed bids for Mourinho, at the semi-final stage, the final rites being read right in the stadium they call home and, on both occasions, the Germans hammering the final nail in the coffin, doesn’t look like a script from the success manual that has made this man the Special One.

I’m not a Real Madrid fan, the fact that they specialise in using Manchester United as a pond where they fish their best recruits fatally damaged our relationship, the special bond I shared with Cristiano Ronaldo was broken the moment he left Old Trafford and Jose will always represent the face of a rival.

But that doesn’t blind me from the reality that Real Madrid are an awesome football machine, that Ronaldo has turned them into a fierce machine, that Mourinho has helped them believe that Barcelona are human and, for some close calls that went against them in Germany, especially Robert Lewandowski’s controversial second goal, they could have been worthy finalists at Wembley.

So, on Tuesday night, as I soaked in Borussia Dortmund’s triumph, which was a combination of both style and grit, I also took time to spare a thought for Real Madrid and I felt touched to hear Mourinho, in his moment of defeat, sounding just like all of us, a man who wanted to be loved.

“I know I am loved in England, I am loved by the fans and the media,” Mourinho told a news conference at the Santiago Bernabeu after the match. “They treat me fairly. They give me credit when it is due and criticise when it is deserved.

“I am loved by some clubs, especially one (Chelsea). In Spain it is different, some people hate me, many of you in this room.”
Mourinho has always had a turbulent relationship with the Spanish media and all hell broke loose last December when the Special One had an altercation with Anton Meana, a journalist working for the Real Madrid-supporting Marca, the biggest selling daily newspaper in Spain.

“Mourinho told me ‘In the world of football I and my people are top and in the world of journalism you are a s***,” Meana said.
“Mourinho said ‘To me they said you are a son of a wh*** and a very bad person, but instead of believing it, I think differently.
“‘You are anti-Madrid, anti-Mourinho and your questions always have a negative intention’.”

But on Tuesday night, as Mourinho went through the motions of a nightmare that used to be a beautiful dream to conquer Europe, which had looked distinctly possible this season now that they could match Barcelona, he somehow looked just like one of us once again.

His pursuit of greatness remains undiluted and Madrid offered the right challenge, taking Europe’s greatest football club, in terms of Champions League titles won, back to the top again, exactly 11 years after Zinedine Zidane scored a goal plucked from heaven, in a 2-1 win over Bayer Leverkusen, at Hampden Park on May 15, 2012.

But beyond the quest for immortality, exists a man who wants to be loved, who needs to feel the warmth cascading from the stands, who needs to feel he is getting the support of all his players and the administrative hawks at the club and who needs respect from those who shape public opinion in the media.

Mourinho’s treatment of Iker Casillas certainly divided fans in the Bernabeu not because the Special One was wrong to invest his trust in Diego Lopez, who has been awesome between the posts for the club, but simply because the Spanish captain is a legend who became virtually untouchable when he led his country to their first World Cup success in South Africa.

That also had a huge part to play in his confrontation with the Spanish media, who also view Casillas as a virtual saint, and to see a foreigner coming to their country and treating their national team captain, who won the World Cup and European Cup in successive tournaments, as if he was just another poor player who had messed up his hour upon the stage and shouldn’t be heard any more, was an unforgivable sin.

Mourinho, Coaches, Love, Fans And Media
On Tuesday night as Mourinho wrote his love letter to English football, and in that instant, revived his romantic flirtation with Chelsea, the Special One reminded me of a number of coaches in Zimbabwean football today, men who feel their relationship with their fans could be better and their relationship with the media could be better than what it is right now.

A man like Callisto Pasuwa, who has won two league titles and won the Mbada Diamonds Cup twice, but still finds his credentials being questioned by a clique of DeMbare fans who doubt his technical capacity and, even in his moment of triumph, choose to give credit to Lloyd Mutasa for assembling the foundation of this team.

That Pasuwa also faces a number of hawks within the club’s leadership, who never believed in him from day one and brought him as a stop-gap measure rather than a long-term technical expert to guide their team back to success, only to be surprised that he did so well within that period, only makes his situation complex.

A coach like Gishon Ntini, who provided the magical touch that ended 42 years of waiting for Triangle to play Premiership football, which is in itself a grand achievement, only to run into a hooligan who punched him, after their loss to Tripple B, because he was unhappy that they had not only lost at home but also to a new team in the top-flight league.

A man like Luke Masomere, who waved his magic last year to inspire Shabanie Mine to fourth-place on the Premiership table, quite a heroic achievement given their lack of both financial and material resources highlighted by the fact that the man who scored most of their goals had been loaned to them for free, as excess baggage by rivals FC Platinum, but returned this season to find there is someone in the club’s leadership who probably wants him out.

A coach like Mandla Mpofu, who inherited a team whose soul had been shattered by the tragic death of their beloved coach Adam Ndlovu, and somehow managed to guide them to success in the NetOne Charity Shield only to learn that his job was on the line, after a brief poor run of results in the league, and needing to scramble a win against CAPS United to save it.

A man like Brenna Msiska, who toiled night and day when days were dark during the off-season to assemble a CAPS United team that could compete in the Premiership, after a number of the old guard abandoned ship, only to run into a storm of protests from some of his fans, after a painful home loss to the in-form Buffaloes at Gwanzura, despite the reality that there would be setbacks in this journey.

A coach like Kevin Kaindu, who came very close to winning Bosso’s first league title in half-a-dozen years last year only to be beaten by goal difference in a season where his team only lost once, who now feels some journalists in Harare want to poison his relationship with referees and chose to misquote him, after the Independence Trophy final, to create a crisis.

Football coaches, just like players, need to operate in an environment where they need to feel the chemistry of the love coming from the stands, feel that they are not walking alone in their journey, that the fans are with them in this march and, together, they are a team and not a fractious unit.

Coaches also need to work in an environment where the media isn’t hostile to them, plotting their downfall with every word that they print or broadcast, and looking for the negatives, which are at times blown out of proportion, while the positives that they do are either hidden away from the public domain or dismissed as meaningless.

Pasuwa has his flaws, technical or otherwise, just like Mourinho, just like all the other coaches in the world, but to suddenly view him as the weakest link in this DeMbare set-up, now that the Glamour Boys are paying a huge price for converting themselves into a flea market that sells its best players to the first bidder from South Africa, is not only diabolical but certainly misplaced.

On Wednesday he made one huge bad decision, which was popular among the fans but disruptive to his team’s interests in the match against FC Platinum, when he pulled out Boban Zirintusa, who was not at his best, and introduced Patrick Khumbula and drawing the impressive Washington Pakamisa back into the supporting cast role.

Coaches are humans, they can’t get it right all the time, and this was Pasuwa’s monumental blunder, in a huge game that could have turned their season, but to suddenly round up on him, to the extent of questioning his capacity to lead DeMbare’s quest for a hat-trick of league titles, is grossly unfair and without substance.

Suddenly, as his army of vicious critics stormed out of Rufaro on Wednesday, it was all about that wrong tactical move while his brave decision to stick with Pakamisa, against a torrent of questions about his pedigree at this level and in this age and era, was forgotten despite the very fact that the former CAPS United skipper had made the biggest impact on that game.

Goalkeeper Artwell Mukandi’s sickening schoolboy error, trying to clear a ball that was there to be safely collected by his hands resulting in that corner from where the visitors found their equaliser, lifeline and energy, was conveniently forgotten and, somehow, was not even mentioned in all the four daily newspaper reports, as if it had suddenly become normal for DeMbare ‘keepers to make monumental blunders.

Pasuwa has earned his stripes as DeMbare coach, his two league titles bear testimony to that, but that should not lure him into a false sense of security because given the high standards that he has set for himself and for his team, he can’t be seen to be embracing mediocrity and the challenge for him is to battle on in his quest for greatness.

But, as Mourinho put it very clear, a coach for such a big club needs the support of everyone in the team and has to feel that he is “loved by the fans and the media,” journalists who “treat (him) fairly (and) give (him) credit when it is due and criticise when it is deserved.”

It’s the same for Kaindu, who has done an absolutely incredible job at Bosso and has lost only twice, one at home and one away from home, in 37 Premiership league ties since taking over the hot seat at a club where failure, as Gideon Gono used to tell us back in the days of hyperinflation, isn’t an option.

There are some, within the Bosso camp, who believe their team would have been champions last year if the team manager, Amin Soma-Phiri, had been pulling in the same direction with other members of the technical crew and images splashed in the media in the City of Kings, showing him rooted to his bench while everyone else was celebrating a goal, appeared to back those claims.

Kaindu is a good man who deserves to be given the benefit of doubt that his interview, which triggered all sorts of noises after the Independence Trophy in which he was quoted as having threatened to quit and leave the country, had been taken out of context and blown out of proportion.

He says he discussed it with the journalist, whoever it is, to express his disappointment and, to guard against such things happening in future given their capacity to deflect his team’s focus from concentrating on their mission to try and win the league championship.

There is also the issue of the poisonous relationship it creates, with the referees and other stakeholders of the game in the country, and Kaindu, just like Mourinho, deserves to work in an environment where he feels he is “loved by the fans and the media,” journalists who “treat (him) fairly (and) give (him) credit when it is due and criticise when it is deserved.”

Mangwiro is one of the most qualified coaches and a shrewd tactician, in his own right, and that he prefers to do his job far away from the madness of the media limelight, where the likes of Ntini love to bath, has earned him a lot of respect and, even though his playing background was written at DeMbare, he has been accepted warmly at the Green Machine.

We have an interesting scenario where our three biggest clubs — Dynamos, Highlanders and CAPS United — are under the guidance of youthful coaches, in an age where football is rewarding those who are investing in the youth in terms of playing personnel, and just like Mourinho in Spain, we don’t need to create an environment where they will feel the establishment is pushing them out.

The media has a big role to play, in helping the three young coaches in their quest for greatness doing very difficult assignments at clubs that have zero tolerance for failure, and if journalists can force a coach as successful as Mourinho to the brink, what chances really do the likes of Pasuwa, Kaindu and Mangwiro to stand in a media blitz against them?

Like the Special One, all they are crying out for is to be “loved by the fans and the media,” to work with journalists who “treat (them) fairly (and) give (them) credit when it is due and criticise when it is deserved.”

In my little book, I don’t believe they are asking for too much, even though I know there are a number of clubs, officials and fans who feel that, I am a piece of s***, a very bad person, anti-this club, anti-this coach and all my comments have a negative intention.

But it comes with the trade and if Meana could face the same accusations from Mourinho, who am I to duck such accusations?
FC Platinum Are A Club On The Move

After a year of stagnation, in which they collapsed from being a high-flying club that could compete for the league championship to one that was so ordinary, if not pathetic, the only difference between them and Quelaton was that they had money, lots of it, and the Bulawayo side had nothing, FC Platinum are slowly finding their way back to the big time.

They have a coach who appears to know what he needs from his team and Tennant Chilumba made one key tactical and personnel change in the first half, at Rufaro on Wednesday, a master-stroke and one of the best moments, in terms of bench influence I have seen in a local league game, for some time now.

Where we used to have a divided team, clusters of individuals who grouped themselves in terms of their origins either in Bulawayo or Harare or in terms of their mother language, you now have a united football club where the players play for the team and not for themselves.

Where we used to have a group of individuals who appeared to care first for their big pay cheques, with the interests of the club coming later, you now have a proper football team that understands their mission and are full value for their place at the top of the table.

I’m not sure if they can withstand the pressure and hold on to win the league championship but they have given their fans, who are suddenly back on their side after deserting them last year, reason to believe.

When you have a club whose leadership pauses — once every year — to remember and pay tribute to a coach who died in tragic circumstances while on club duties, the way FC Platinum did by buying space in this newspaper to remember the day Benjamin Moyo died, you know you have a club on the move.

It’s nine years now since Blessing Makunike, Gary Mashoko and Shingi Arlon perished in that car crash while returning home from a league match and maybe, if CAPS United could do what FC Platinum does every year, in remembering these heroes, it could bring a spirit of goodwill into this club and their task, to try and win a league title for the first time in eight years, could be made a lot easier.

Last Saturday at the Ettihad, Manchester City and West Ham fans rose in unison after 23 minutes, when the image of Marc-Vivien Foe was splashed on the big screen, to honour the memory of the Cameroonian midfielder, who collapsed and died 10 years ago after having starred for both clubs, and used to wear the jersey number 23 at City.

Shuwa here, tingakundwe nevarungu kurangarira chivanhu chedu?
Don’t Cry For Bruised Barcelona
For the Barca fans, and they are hard to distinguish because a good number of them go there for comfort after their preferred teams have been defeated, the last two weeks have been nothing short of a disaster.

To lose 0-7 against Bayern Munich, to watch Lionel Messi turn on such a lifeless show in Germany, to be humiliated in the Camp Nou and to watch their tiki taka football look so sterile and so ordinary, was a pill too bitter to swallow.

As Barca remained faithful to their philosophy, even when it was clear it wasn’t working, they resembled a forgotten sungura band, playing out to an audience that wasn’t even listening, unaware that music had long changed, and this wasn’t the age, and era, to charm hearts with John Chibadura and The Tembo Brothers’ old hit sing, “Mudiwa Jennet”.

But the signs should have been there for all to see because when Real Madrid beat Barca 3-1 at the Camp Nou in the Copa Del Rey in February this year, it marked the 12th straight match the home team’s defence had been breached, something that could not have been possible in the past.

I’m not sure if this humiliation by Bayern marks the beginning of the end because great establishments like Barcelona cannot be destroyed by one bad result and Dynamos needed a seven-goal humiliation by CAPS United, in the ‘80s, to get the reminder that everyone was now catching up with them after a period of ruthless domination.

Of course, they recovered and so did Manchester United, after the six-goal humiliation at home by City last year and Arsenal after the eight-goal thrashing at Old Trafford.
It’s how Barcelona are going to respond, to this huge setback, which matters because greatness is not defined by the number of times that one falls but how they rise from those falls.

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

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