managerial style, something that he has been very critical of for a long time now, but also laid the blame on the Warriors’ failed 2012 Nations Cup campaign on coach Norman Mapeza.Sir Alex Ferguson will mark 25 years as manager of Manchester United next Sunday but while the world will seize the moment to reflect on the extra-ordinary achievements of the most successful manager in English football history, the ghost of last Sunday’s Old Trafford debacle will loom large.

It’s never easy to spend a quarter-of-a-century in one position, especially in the trenches of football coaching, and Ferguson’s remarkable longevity at United might never happen, at any team in the English Premiership, during our time.

But time flies and only yesterday I realised that on Tuesday I will be marking 19 years of service for this newspaper, working on the same Sports Desk, having first arrived here as a fresh-faced 22-year-old, coming straight from Journalism School, on November 1, 1992.
I wouldn’t like to believe there is a mystical connection between staying long, in one area of employment at the same firm, and starting that job in November, and that Fergie and I have lasted so long in our jobs – having both started in November – might just be a coincidence.

Given all the years I have invested in this newspaper organisation, maybe I’m in a good position to understand how Fergie feels about Manchester United – the passion for success, the endless pursuit for excellence, the eternal battle to be better than yesterday, the timeless quest to be the best.
The more you stay in the same job, for the same employers, the more you get a sense of belonging and you become a part of the organisation’s system, enjoying its highs and dealing with its lows, but generally you try hard to play your role to be part of a success story. Fergie has done remarkably well for United, over the past quarter-of-a-century, but for everything that he has won, including that incredible night at the Nou Camp when his heroes came from the death to score twice at the end and win the European Cup in May, 1999, the events of Saturday, at Old Trafford, must have hurt him badly.

Even more than when he was captured trembling on the bench, as Lionel Messi and his Barcelona magicians turned on the style at Wembley in the European Cup final in May, because Fergie appeared to have been so hammered, by the humiliating nature of Saturday’s defeat, he even got his facts wrong in the post-match interviews.
For Ferguson claimed that it was the worst defeat for him, both as a player and manager, but statistics soon showed that he was wrong, probably intoxicated by the brutality of that defeat, he somehow forgot that he played for the Falkirk team that lost 1-7 to Airdrieonians, on April 26, 1971 in a Scottish league match.

Until Sunday, United had not lost at home in 25 league matches, and had won 19 of those encounters at Fortress Old Trafford, but all that counted for nothing as City handed them their worst home defeat since 1955 and ensured the Red Devils conceded six goals, for the first time at home, since 1930.
It equaled the biggest win in Manchester Derby history and fans needed to go down memory lane to 85 years ago, in 1926, when City won 6-1 again at Old Trafford, and fell just a goal short of

United’s record home defeat when Newcastle United won 7-1 at the Theatre of Dreams in September 1927.
United were humiliated on Sunday and, for a team that has made it its life to bully the English Premiership in the past 20 years, and dominate it with a ruthlessness last seen when Liverpool represented greatness in the late ‘70s and the ‘80s, Sunday’s capitulation was a shame.

I’m a United fan, has always been and will always be, and I will be frank to say that not since that day at the National Sports Stadium in 1993, when Kalusha Bwalya’s late header flew past Bruce Grobbelaar for the goal that destroyed our ’94 Nations Cup dreams, have I been so badly hurt by the result of a football match.

The jokes have been everywhere.

  • Manchester United’s defence were at Sixes and Evans.
  • Manchester City have just gained a large number of new fans in the Chinese province of ‘Sichuan.’
  • Those ‘19′ banners could come in handy now – City have just turned them upside down.
  • United to win the second and third set, City won the first set 6-1.
  • Mrs Fergie: ‘Get up, Alex! It’s just now 7!” Fergie: “Oh, no! They have scored again?”
  • David De Gea’s mum rang him up at half-time and told him to be home before seven.

All week, readers have taunted me to say they can barely wait to hear what I will be saying today about Demolition Derby, especially after the way I enjoyed the 8-2 win over Arsenal, and I ensured that I didn’t turn into a coward who suddenly found a convenient cave to hide away from reality.

City taught us a big lesson on Sunday and, to their fans and millions of Arsenal, Chelski and Liverpool fans in their corner that day, they demonstrated the full beauty of football and such sights and sounds had to be seen, and heard, to be believed.
Is this the beginning of the end of the United era?

Yes, says everyone opposed to the Red Devils and they will tell you that no dynasty lasts forever.
No, says those of us who still believe because in a quarter-of-a-century of service, Fergie has repeatedly showed us that one result doesn’t make a season.
After all, exactly a year ago, on November 30 last year, Jose Mourinho and his Real Madrid stars were hammered 0-5 in El Clasico at the Nou Camp by Barcelona, but it didn’t mean the end of the road and 12 months down the road, there is a feeling the men from Madrid are probably the strongest team in Europe today.

Give City their dues, they were awesome on Sunday as much as we were horrible.
But make no mistake about it, the empire will strike back.


Thank God, Musona Is Off The Mark
No football player in this country today holds the keys to a possible successful future for the Warriors as much as Knowledge Musona who, in just about two years, has turned himself from an

unknown quantity into the most valuable asset in our national game.
Not since the explosion of Peter Ndlovu on the grand stage, one unforgettable day at the National Sports Stadium when he conducted the orchestra as the Warriors humbled Bafana Bafana 4-1, has our football embraced a genius as good as the Smiling Assassin.
There have been some good players, without a doubt, and Vitalis Takawira, Agent Sawu, Stewart Murisa, Benjamin Nkonjera, Shingi Kawondera, Tauya Murewa, were certainly good but you always felt the gap between them and King Peter was as vast as the length of the Sahara Desert.

The arrival of the Smiling Assassin has changed all that and, just like King Peter, he has also taken over as the Warriors’ talisman and hasn’t disappointed, too, leading the scoring charts for the team with four goals in their failed 2012 Nations Cup campaign.

Without him the Warriors have looked ordinary and they were beaten 0-1, when injury ruled him out, in the key away game against Mali and, although they lost 1-2 in Cape Verde with Musona in the team, he scored the goal that briefly gave us hope.
When journalist Hope Chizuzu this week argued that the Warriors beat a Seydou Keita-less Mali 2-1 at Rufaro, a number of fans were quick to remind him that Mali also beat a Knowledge Musona-less Warriors in Bamako.

Such is the faith that the local fans have placed in their man that they even now equate his significance, to the national team, on the same levels as Keita, in the cause of Mali, and Musona will tell you that it’s not a bad thing to be mentioned in the same breadth as the Barca midfielder.
We all love Knowledge and that’s why his maiden goal for TSG Hoffenheim, in a German Cup second round match on Tuesday night, dominated the back pages of all the mainstream daily newspapers in this country on Thursday.

Getting the first goal is the tough part and Benjani took 15 games, to get his first goal for Portsmouth, after a 4.5 million pound move from France when he finally scored in the 2-1 win against Wigan on April 29, 2006.

Knowledge had, until Tuesday night, made five appearance, coming in as a substitute, as TSG Hoffenheim tried to ease him into the Bundesliga trenches but, after being given his first starting role in the team on Tuesday, he made his mark by scoring what proved to be the winner.
Hopefully that will ease some of the pressure that had started to build in his mind and we can expect to see more goals from the Smiling Assassin in the Bundesliga.

Something keeps telling me that this boy is really special and the world is about to embrace a rare and genuine talent whose brilliance will not only be felt in the borders of the Bundesliga but will certainly be felt across the globe in the next few years.
Knowledge has the X-Factor, that mystery quality that separates greatness and those who are just good or simply very good, and you feel his game is getting better and better with each passing month and year.

Edzai Kasinauyo, his first manager who brokered his deal to Kaizer Chiefs, told me at the City Lodge hotel in Johannesburg in June 2009, shortly after Musona had sealed his move to the Amakhosi, that he believed Zimbabwe had just unearthed a gem who could be as big as Samuel Eto’o one good day.
Roberto Mancini said this week that if Mario Ballotelli keeps his focus on his game then he could probably be as good as Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo.

Mancini is an Italian. And so is Ballotelli.
It’s a huge statement to make but that’s how others inspire their countrymen.

We should also be doing the same and I feel we need to all rally behind Knowledge Musona because he is our boy, as golden as they come, and Thank God, he is off the mark in Germany.
Rise and shine Smiling Assassin!


Blame It All On Norman Mapeza?
Hope Chizuzu torched a storm this week with his analysis where he did not only question Zifa president Cuthbert Dube’s managerial style, something that he has been very critical of for a long time now, but also laid the blame on the Warriors’ failed 2012 Nations Cup campaign on Norman Mapeza.

Hope touched on a number of fundamental issues, questioning Mapeza’s suitability to hold that role, against a background of questionable qualifications given that he had been overlooked in the initial selection process by Zifa, and how the coach expected to succeed in an environment where more than 90 percent of the board members didn’t believe in him. A number of readers, who felt offended by the strong tone of the article, questioned why I gave it the greenlight to be published, given that we could have spiked it at source, because – they argue – it wasn’t in good taste and neither was it beneficial to the future of the game.

My response to those concerns was clear that, while I’m supportive of Mapeza’s reign as Warriors’ coach, it should not be misconstrued to mean that he can’t be criticised, that he can’t be wrong, that whatever he touches turns to gold and is right.
Norman is just human, after all, a young coach who is trying his best to make it in a very unforgiving environment.

Admittedly, Norman had his shortcomings in the 2012 Nations Cup campaign, technical and otherwise, and simply because he team failed to make it means that he has to answer some painful questions, as the head coach, because the objective – from the very beginning – was to try and qualify.
Yes, there is abject failure in life and there is gallant failure but it all comes down to the same thing at the end of the day – you would have failed.

And, in a game like football where winning is everything, noone remembers those who came second no matter how bravely they fought. So, I feel Hope and all the critics who have been seeing the fault lines in Mapeza are right, in a way, to voice their concerns because we did not qualify and, critically, Norman was brought in to bring us that ticket to the Nations Cup finals.
If Alex Ferguson can be questioned, on key aspects of his coaching, then why should Norman be immune to such questions, especially against a background of a failed campaign?

What Norman should do is to derive inspiration, from such criticism, and find important lessons, which he can use in the future to become a better coach.
Where I differ with Hope is where he suggests that Norman is ill-equipped to take us to the Nations Cup finals at some point and, therefore, should either resign or be forced out.
I remain convinced that, without interference from the Zifa board who tried to hijack this campaign, now that a point had been won away in Monrovia, and plant their puppet coach in the form of Tom

Saintfiet for the second game, even going to the extent of trying to ignore all the rules and regulations governing the employment of foreigners in this country, Norman would have taken his Warriors to Equatorial Guinea and Gabon.

Interestingly, when Norman won his point in Monrovia, his critics were saying there was no need to celebrate that because it should have been three points since Liberia are whipping boys. Not surprisingly, those critics went underground when the same Liberian whipping boys beat Cape Verde and drew against Mali in Monrovia, ensuring that no team picked up maximum points in their backyard. We all know what would have happened had the interference not happened in that home game against Cape Verde and had a week of preparations not been lost to the fierce boardroom battles that were fought as some board members tried to keep Saintfiet in his post – at whatever cost.

The advantage of winning that home game, and the subsequent results that followed in the group, would have emanated from the fact that Cape Verde would have been out of the running, for a place at the 2012 Nations Cup finals, by the time we played our last game against them in Praia.
It’s one thing, playing a team in their backyard who still have a chance to qualify, and it’s another thing playing a team just doing it for their pride where, in most of the cases, their best players won’t even care to come and feature in that final match.

Surely, would it have been such a difficult thing to fight for a draw, away in Cape Verde, which would have been enough to take us to Gabon and Equatorial Guinea, had we won our home game against the Atlantic Ocean islanders at the National Sports Stadium?

We now also know, after having endlessly analysed the game we lost in Cape Verde, that the Warriors would certainly have done a far better job had they arrived there earlier and acclimatised to the conditions there, rather than plunging into a melting pot, just two days before the matches, and arriving in batches. Norman had all the odds against him, especially in the two matches against Cape

Verde, and is it a coincidence that is where we failed to make an impression?
Come on guys, it’s not the coach that we need to change, it’s our approach to business that needs an overhaul. The coach is the right guy and all he needs is time and support.

The Season Of Denials
Last week, when we ran a story about Dynamos players who refused to train and indicated that the protest was centred on money owed to the players by the club, we sought comment from the

team’s secretary-general Nyika Chifamba who said:
“It wasn’t something serious and IT WASN’T ABOUT MONEY ISSUES. The players wanted to see the executive but it appears there was a communication breakdown.”
On Tuesday, as Dynamos players received their dues from a Good Samaritan, who donated a substantial amount to cover the outstanding dues that had provoked the protest, club captain Desmond “Gazza” Maringwa said:

“We apologise to the leadership. Sometimes, as players, we are forced to take serious action because of the circumstances we will be facing. We hope this is a thing of the past. As players we are committed to the success of the club.”

No prizes for guessing who, between us and Chifamba, told the true story last week related to that industrial action. But Chifamba isn’t alone in the season of denials.
Kaizer Chiefs’ general manager Bobby Motaung says he didn’t lie about the team’s captaincy controversy, coach Vlad V has also been telling everyone who cares to listen that he isn’t a liar, Jimmy Tau, the deposed skipper, also says he is not a liar.
Well, well, well, said the preacher.

Tsime, tsime, tsime, said the interpreter. It’s a tough world guys and, in case you doubt that, ask Sir Alex Ferguson.
He should know because, next Saturday, it will be 25 years for him in charge of United.
Come on United!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Chicharitooooooooooooooooooooooooo
ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!
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