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rugby or any sport you can ever think of, on this special day. Everything takes a rest, as everyone in the Christian world reflectsTomorrow is Christmas Day, the special day when we celebrate the birth of our Saviour, Jesus Christ, the greatest living soul to ever grace our beloved Earth.
It’s a time for reflection, spiced with merry-making, as we, the members of the global Christian family, mark the day our Lord Jesus Christ was born to serve a grand mission to try and take us away from a life of sins.
Religion dominates our lives and, such is the special nature of Christmas Day, the world doesn’t play football, cricket, golf, rugby or any sport you can ever think of, on this special day.
Everything takes a rest, as everyone in the Christian world reflects, and even the razzmatazz of the English Premiership and its packed programme that doesn’t have a mid-season winter break, switches off for the day on Christmas Day.
Then, suddenly, when it gets past midnight on Christmas Day, ushering in Boxing Day, all the madness begins, a Boxing Day Test usually starts in Australia in the season they are home, another one starts in South Africa, and the English Premiership blasts into full swing again. Football, just like sport in general, is connected in a number of special ways to religion and we have seen the Brazilians lifting their jerseys at the World Cup to display religious messages, thanking God for making their country this special football nation.
Dynamos have, for ages, lined up on the goalline to pray, asking for divine help, before every game they play and when coach Lloyd Mutasa changed the system, and results didn’t follow, the blame was put on this experiment to dump a great team tradition.
Incredibly, when Callisto Pasuwa replaced Mutasa, the first thing he did was to re-introduce the pre-match goalline prayer and, as if on cue, the results started to improve and by the end of the year DeMbare had dissolved a 12-point deficit to become champions again.
American author, Robert J. Higgs, explored the subject of sport and religion in his controversial book, God In The Stadium – Sports and Religion in America, where he notes that popular sporting disciplines are pregnant with religious rituals.
Thomas Langham, in his review of the same book, observes that religious leaders regularly speak of sporting events and use analogies related to sports to illustrate their sermons and prayers.
“Few would argue with the idea that sports and religion are linked in contemporary society. In his work God In The Stadium, Robert J. Higgs, examinees the origin of these linkages as well as their present-day consequences,” writes Langham.
It’s hard not to be religious, not to believe in God, and for a football columnist in a largely Christian nation, a blog that comes on the eve of Christmas Day has to really capture the mood the occasion. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, even your good old blogger has been drowned in the occasion and has found the Christmas mood so irresistible he has decided to dedicate most of today’s blog to the special occasion.
Jesus Christ, born on Christmas Day, was crucified on Good Friday and, on that cross, he died for our sins.
On Good Friday this year, our little football family in this country was rocked by the sudden death of FC Platinum coach, Benjamin Moyo, who drowned in a swimming pool during a team camp.
When tomorrow is gone, the next time the Christian world goes on holiday to remember a special event connected to Jesus Christ, it would on Good Friday next year when, once again, we mark the day he was crucified.
For the Moyo family, the old man Paul, his son Benedict, and his grand children, it will be a time to reflect a year to the day that Benjamin’s life was taken in the still waters of that swimming pool. The little obituary, which I penned on this blog for a young coach who made a big impression in my life, attracted the biggest feedback from readers.

The Tribute To Benjamin Moyo – A Repeat
James Dean, the American actor who starred in the 1955 hit movie A Rebel Without A Cause as troubled Los Angeles teenager Jim Stark, would have been 80 years today, if he had lived long enough to fulfill his great potential as one of Hollywood’s finest leading men.
But the cultural icon died when he was just 24.
On September 30, 1955, Dean was driving a Porsche 550 Spyder, with his mechanic Rolf Wutherich in the passenger seat, to Salinas, California, for a sports car race when a car, moving in the opposite direction, encroached into their lane and slammed into their vehicle.
Wutherich was thrown out of the Porsche, on impact, while Dean was badly injured and the dashing actor was pronounced dead on arrival at the Paso Robles War Memorial Hospital. Hollywood mourned the death of a superstar whose life had suddenly been cut short, at such a tender age, and Dean became the first actor to receive a posthumous Academy Award nomination for Best Actor.
The world has always wondered what Dean would have achieved if he had lived longer.
His tragic death, at such a young age when he was starting to make a big impact as a leading Hollywood actor, boosted his value as a superstar and two years ago, South African investment Allan Gray brought Dean on the screen again in an advert that captured the imagination of the world.
The advert is an imagination that feeds on the world’s questions, which have always followed Dean’s death, and is built on an imagination of what his life would have been like had he not died in that car crash at 24.
Technology was used to bring Dean back to life in the advert and he is shown receiving an Oscar, protesting against the Vietnam War and also doing some humanitarian work around the world.
Then there is also the scene of that accident in a Porsche, just like what happened in 1955, and Dean emerges from the wrecked car and, as the dust clears, he is shown drawing a deep breath. Suddenly the advert comes to an end with the message that captures its soul – “Given more time, Imagine the possibilities.”
The good old man Paul Moyo cried for his son, Benedict cried for his brother, Bekhi cried for his father and we all cried for a football colleague whose tree of life had been uprooted just when we thought the real journey to greatness had begun.
At 39, Benjamin Moyo was about six years older than Jesus Christ, at the time he was crucified and, from now onwards, Good Friday, will assume a new meaning for the good old man Paul Moyo and his family.
From now onwards they will remember Good Friday, not only for its global significance in the Christian world as the day when Jesus Christ was crucified to pay the ultimate prize for our sins, but also as the day that Benji died.
Football, by its public nature, makes it easy for us to analyse its artists – either the players who produce the magic on the field or the coaches who play around with the tactics – and the more that we are exposed to them the better that we seem to understand them.
Benji was 39 and he deserved the benefit of doubt that, given more years to live, he would certainly have turned himself into the super coach that he wanted to be and, crucially, for which he had sacrificised so much.
Given more time, we can only imagine the possibilities!
We cried for Benji during the Easter weekend because we felt the full impact of the tragic manner in which he died, at the young age of 39, and we all said how could this happen to such a pretty good guy.
Benji coached before he came to FC Platinum, having stints at Amazulu and in Swaziland, but there is always a feeling that the real business of his chosen profession was going to start this year, now that he was armed with his coaching licence and now that he had come back home to prove himself.
Sadly we will never know what could have happened and, just like that Allan Gray advert that brings back to life James Dean, we can only bury our thoughts in that defining message – “Given more time, Imagine the possibilities.”
Just like Allan Gray and their James Dean advert – can only soak in the message – “Given more time, Imagine the Possibilities.”

Football, Religion And The Pope
Fans of Queen of the South, a Scottish professional football club founded in 1919, have always claimed that their club is the one that is supported by God, the Almighty.
Queen of the South fans, to buttress their wild claims, even argue that their team is the only football club to be mentioned in the Bible.
Luke 11:31 states: “The Queen of the South shall rise up at the judgment with the men of this generation and condemn them…”
Queen of the South, they claim, is similarly quoted under Matthew 12:42.
The estimated 30 million fans of Brazilian club Corinthians, the richest football club in that country in terms of revenue with an annual income of US$132 million, and the most valuable club in that nation at US$540 million, also believe their team is religiously blessed.
British journalist, Sean Ingle, writing in The Guardian, explored, at length, the myth that the late Pope John Paul II was a Fulham fan.
“Throughout his long and pious life, Pope John Paul II worshipped only one God. But, when it came to football teams, he was much freer with his affections,” wrote Ingle.
“For the pontiff, a handy goalkeeper in his youth, had ties to at least six sides – including Liverpool, Barcelona and Fulham.
“His alleged support of Fulham, in particular, has journeyed from urban myth to apparent fact – with local legend having it that John Paul II stood on the terraces at Craven Cottage in the 1930s when he was studying as a priest in Roehampton.
“In 1999, Ken Myers of the supporters’ group, the Fulham Independent Fanline, phoned the Vatican to ask about the rumours, later telling reporters: ‘I’d heard the Pope was a fan so, as it was Easter, I thought I’d give him a ring. I couldn’t believe it when I got through to his press spokesman. This guy even knew we were playing Wigan and was happy to talk about it.’
The Pope was also a keen Liverpool fan, at least according to the club’s Polish keeper, Jerzy Dudek.
“The Pope had a lifelong Barcelona membership card – No 108 000 – which he was given after performing mass at the Nou Camp stadium, in front of 120 000 people, in November 1982. But despite all these fanciful affiliations, most Poles will tell you the Pope really only had eyes for one team – Cracovia Cracow. That support seems to have lingered until the end – he granted the team’s players and staff a private audience in the Vatican.
“After giving them his blessing, the Pope assured the team he still supported them.”

The Madness DeMbare Didn’t Need
Callisto Pasuwa has been a deeply religious man since he found his faith, shortly after retiring from playing, and became a faithful disciple of one of the Apostolic sects.
Pasuwa, just like Mutasa, is a Madzibaba and you won’t see him indulging in pleasures of this world like drinking beer, either in public bars or in the seclusion of his home, because this runs into conflict with his deep religious beliefs. It has given him a sense of direction in his life and he is so cool, even under the most intense of pressure, never betraying what is going on inside his soul, because he always believes there is a divine helping hand guiding his life.
Because Pasuwa rarely complains, and clearly shuns the limelight, some unscrupulous people feel it’s a weakness in his character and those vultures have repeatedly taken advantage of that to try and exploit him.
For a coach who performed this miracle and took Dynamos from a position of severe weakness, where their championship challenge looked at best a sick joke and, at worst, a nightmare, and transformed them into a championship-winning side, the treatment he has been getting at the hands of the club’s leadership is the height of treachery.
For a coach who performed all these wonders, when this mountain looked virtually impossible to scale, and he did not only win the big one but, for good measure, also added the bonus Mbada Diamonds Cup to the collection, the treatment he has received from his club’s leadership borders on criminality and he will be forgiven if he drags them to court for criminal defamation.
For a coach who, not only defied the odds but made it all look so easy, in a battle that wasn’t fought on a level playing field where his penniless soldiers faced the might of the big-money rivals from Zvishavane, Pasuwa’s treatment at the hands of his club’s leadership has been so brutal he should sue them for the emotional damages suffered.
For a coach who inspired the greatest comeback show, in the era of the modern Premiership, working in the melting pot of the Dynamos politics where there are many sellouts and clones of Brutus than Julius Caesars, Pasuwa’s achievements this season were from a different planet and deserved a little bit of respect from his employers.
That he didn’t even get a bonus, just as a token of appreciation for guiding Dynamos to the league and cup double, is not only diabolical but blows wind into the conspiracy theory that this Dynamos leadership, far from being happy with what their coach achieved, probably found his success a barrier to their grand scheme to bring in someone else.
It’s hard to argue against those who are saying that the game plan had already been laid down for Keegan Mumba to come on board because, as far as this leadership was concerned, winning the league championship was out of question and Pasuwa had only been hired to see out the season and warm the seat for the Zambian.
When you have an executive that sinks so low as to go and choose which foreign players can best fit into this Dynamos team, without any input from the coach who knows the right people he needs to add value to his team, then you know that there is more to this madness than what is meeting the eye.
Even during the awards presentation ceremony, there was nothing from this executive to just give Pasuwa, even an award without any monetary value, for the miracle he performed.
I sympathise with Pasuwa because he was there in the trenches and made a success story of what had, until then, been a disaster and even if he is demanding US$15 000 or whatever (for I know this is unrealistic and is being used by the leadership to portray him in bad light), for his salary, I don’t care because he is putting a value to his work in a tricky bargaining process against a leadership so insensitive to his plight. When he was using his car during the season to go for training and matches, the executive was not there for him because they were pretty sure that this was a short-term relationship that would disappear as soon as we began munching into the chicken this Christmas Day.
The DeMbare executive haven’t handled this issue very well and the tragedy is that it has created all this unnecessary friction and, crucially, for both parties to find a way to work together again, next season, without any fears of one party sabotaging the other will need a bigger miracle than what Pasuwa required to win the league and cup double.
One of the two parties has to give in and, the way I know the Dynamos politics, I can see a number of the executive committee members digging their own graves.
As one Dynamos fan rightly said on Facebook this week – Mwari Pindirai!

Down, Down, The Warriors Go
About two weeks ago, I warned that there was too much emphasis, on the part of our Zifa leadership, on cleaning their house, or whatever they call it, at the expense of fulfilling their primary role to develop the game and turn the national teams into success story.
In my humble analysis, I felt that if the Zifa bosses gave a quarter of the energy they have spent in their house cleaning exercise to helping our national teams, so that the Young Warriors don’t suddenly turn up in Botswana wearing a funny kit from hell, we would see big changes.
Unfortunately, as is now the case in our heavily polarised football fraternity, noone listens but the results don’t lie and, just a few weeks after the Young Warriors failed to win even a single game in Botswana at the Cosafa Youth Championships, the Warriors have dropped 28 places down the Fifa rankings into 98th place.
Just as feared, our appearance at the Cecafa Championships, where we were invited as last minute representatives, and sending a third-string side that only went as far as the quarter-finals, did not help us and the results have had a huge knock on our ranking.
With the Warriors out of the 2012 Nations Cup finals, and their next competitive game coming in February, chances are that we would be out of the top 100 by the time we begin the 2013 Nations Cup qualifiers.
Hopefully, when that happens, noone will accuse this Zifa board of match-fixing took the Warriors, during this board’s term of office, out of the top 100 on the world rankings.
Life has a funny way of coming round in circles.
As that Dynamos fan put it on Facebook – Mwari Pindirai!

Suarez Gets His Ban
I’m a United fan, and fiercely anti-racist, and you can only take a bow to the English FA for its very strong anti-racism stance.
I’m not sure that Luis Suarez racially abused Patrice Evra but what I am interested in is that, once the English believe someone crossed the racial line, the punishment is severe.
For a country like England to take a big stance, in matters where someone is targeted for the colour of his skin, is really massive.
But you can only admire the efficiency of the football justice delivery system in that country as Suarez, despite the ban, is allowed to continue playing until he exhausts all the appeal structures.
Now that is Fairness!
Just imagine, for a moment, if this had happened here in Zimbabwe and Suarez, or whoever, had been slapped with a ban, do you think they would be allowed to continue in their portfolio until their appeal is done?
As that Dynamos fan rightly put it on Facebook – Mwari Pindirai!
Merry Christmas to all you fellows and thanks, in the name of the Lord our Saviour, for your patronage all year, for it means a lot.
Come on United!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Chicharitoooooooooooooooooooooooo!
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