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Sharuko on Saturday

AT the ’62 World Cup finals, a trailblazing Russian ‘keeper underlined his reputation as the greatest goal-minder football had ever seen.

For the second World Cup running, his heroics between the posts inspired the Soviet Union to a place into the quarter-finals.

Sandwiched between the two World Cups, he had led his country to be crowned kings of European football, at the first Euro championships, in 1960.

Sixty years have now passed since his heroics in Chile, including a wonder save in the quarter-final showdown against the hosts, solidified his legendary status.

Incredibly, it was at the age of 60, when he died.

On March 20, 1990, he left the world of the mortals, to take his place in the paradise of the immortals, from where he continues to keep a close eye on the game he loved.

As fate would have it, his death, just like his heroics at the ’62 World Cup, came just two years after his country’s fine run in the Euro championships.

In ’88, a new generation of Soviet footballers came within just 90 minutes of winning another Euro championship to their trophy cabinet.

However, they ran into a formidable Dutch side, Marco van Basten, Rudi Gullit and Frank Rijkaard, and lost 0-2 in the final, where Igor Belanov missed a penalty for the Soviets.

Today, the name Lev Yashin still represents greatness, the golden identity which FIFA attaches to the annual award, which embodies excellence in goalkeeping.

The Lev Yashin award is handed, annually, by FIFA to the ’keeper who would have performed better than any other goal-minder in the world.

It’s a fitting tribute to a ’keeper who saved over 150 penalties in his professional career, the most by any goal-minder, kept 270 clean sheets while also winning gold at the 1956 Olympics.

Next year, the world will mark 60 years since a goalkeeper won the Ballon d’Or, for the FIRST AND ONLY TIME, in the history of football’s golden award.

Of course, it was Lev Yashin!

Incredibly, the celebrations of the 60th anniversary of that landmark moment will also come at a time when a number of legendary ’keepers, God willing, will also celebrate their 60th birthday anniversaries.

These are the boys who were born in ’63.

As if God really wanted to bless His beautiful game, and his world, with this amazing battery of its finest ‘keepers.

The boys who were born in the year the world finally accepted that goalkeeping is an art and just as integral, in the team’s success, as the exploits of the golden forwards like Pele and Garrincha.

The boys who were born in the year when one of them was anointed king of the game and, in doing so, dragged goalkeeping from the back stage, to the front row, of this game.

Who are these special boys who were born in this special year for ‘keepers in ’63?

David Seaman, England’s second most capped ’keeper after Peter Shilton, who received an MBE for services to football, was born on September 19, 1963.

Forget about the way he was beaten by that Ronaldinho free-kick at the 2002 World Cup, it happens in football, because Seaman’s time in football was largely a success story.

I should know because he was Arsenal’s first-choice ’keeper at a time when the Gunners were the only club which used to stand between Manchester United and complete domination of English football.

Those were the days when we had the services of a goalkeeper, so good, we used to even get surprised on the occasions he conceded goals.

His name is Peter Schmeichel, the Giant Dane, whose arrival at United helped change the history of our club and, fittingly, captained the Red Devils to victory in the Champions League final, in 1999, to complete the Treble.

A Reuters poll in 2001 that featured over 200 000 participants from around the world, named him the greatest goalkeeper of all-time, ahead of Lev Yashin and Gordon Banks.

Schmeichel was born on November 18, 1963.

Bernard Lama was part of the French squad which won the ’98 World Cup and Euro 2000 titles and, long before Paris Saint-Germain became the Moneybags that they are today, he was the ’keeper who served them with distinction.

He was born on April 7, 1963.

’63 WAS A GOOD DAY, JAPHET WAS BORN

 Even Jose Mourinho was born in 1963.

Of course, the Special One was never a ’keeper but the influence, which eventually saw him becoming a huge part of the history of this game, started at home.

It came from his father, Felix, who spent 20 years as a ’keeper for Vitoria Setubal and Belenenses and even featured once for Portugal, at the age of 34, in 1972.

This year marks 50 years since the older Mourinho made his only appearance for his country and, thanks to the exploits of his son, the family’s name is still a huge part of our game. Those who believe the Germans represent the perfect combination of beauty, and the beast, will claim 1963 was also the year real football was born.

Why?

Because it was the year the Bundesliga was established.

On August 8, 1963, an ordinary Zimbabwean family welcomed the arrival of the new member of their clan.

They named him Japhet.

It’s very unlikely the Mparutsa family knew that the latest addition to their family had come in a season, which was quite bountiful, when it came to the production of vintage goalkeepers around the world.

A year in which the football gods were quite generous, in the making of goalkeepers, by providing the game with a good number of boys, who would later evolve into legends of the posts.

While they were all born in 1963, there was something distinctly different, between Japhet and the likes of Peter Schmeichel, Bernard Lama and David Seaman.

Peter is a giant, consistently weighing over 100kgs, during the peak of his career, and stood at a towering 1.91m.

David is a big guy and, standing at 1.93m, and weighing an average 93kgs, during his career, he was an imposing figure between the posts.

Bernard also had decent height, 1,85m, and weight, 75kg, for the better part of his career.

Japhet was relatively small, maybe short is the right word, and – from a distance – he didn’t appear the kind of fellow one could associate with fine goalkeepers.

But, in football, looks can be deceiving.

It’s very unlikely that we all could have believed, after meeting Mr Ronaldo, also known as Ngedwa Mpako, also known as Kakatowandaa, for the first time, that he is a unique six-year-old with such a rich knowledge of football.

But, now we all know that he isn’t an ordinary primary school boy from Mbare, but something quite special and we have all fallen in love with him.

I’m not sure whether Mr Ronaldo knows that, in the neighbourhood that he calls home, also used to be the home of a legendary ’keeper called Japhet Mparutsa?

Mr Ronaldo has clearly told us that he is a Dynamos fan, which probably is expected, given where he lives and the Glamour Boys influence in that area.

But, I will bet my last dollar that it’s very unlikely he knows the DeMbare heroes of the past, there is a reason why I used the word “past,” and it’s simply because the Glamour Boys haven’t any heroes right now.

Their heroes are found in their history, back to a time and place where this great club used to be the home of the stars, amazing players like the immortal Japhet Mparutsa.

I’m a devoted fan of Mr Ronaldo, the Mbare Boy, if there is a pocket of disappointment for me, then it comes from this view that 99,99 percent of his heroes are all European players.

His home favourite, he told us this week, is Marvelous Nakamba.

Well, I can’t blame him, in a way, because we, the local journalists, are also to blame, for all this because we have seemingly abandoned our local heroes — the likes of Khama Billiat, Tino Kadewere, Marshall Munetsi and Jordan Zemura.

We seemingly now find ourselves comfortable with telling the CR7 and Messi stories, indulging in never-ending debates about who is the greater of the two, rather than showcasing the exploits of Munetsi.

We are comfortable spending the whole off-season chasing, or even pushing, for Tino Kadewere to be offloaded by Lyon rather than celebrating that Munetsi earned a two-year extension at Stade Reims.

That Tino’s season was disrupted heavily by injuries doesn’t ring a tone among us because, driven by our passion to hate, rather than our obsession to love, we would rather see him going down, rather than moving a notch higher.

FORTY YEARS LATER, THE LEGEND OF THE SHORT CAT LIVES

That’s why we want to keep hammering on the fact that Tino scored one goal, all season, rather than celebrating that Marshall scored FIVE goals and, at his club, he was the second best scorer.

We would rather ignore the fact that this is something amazing, coming from a player primarily employed to be a defensive midfielder, and who missed 14 league matches, because of injury.

A player who, in nine matches in French Ligue 1, with the likes of Kylian Mbappe, Neymar and Lionel Messi, had covered the most kilometres in the league.

A blockbuster individual who, in those matches, has covered 103,9km, at an average of 11,5km per game, including a highest of mark of 13,72 km, in the match against Stade Rennais.

That’s huge and we don’t want to write about that and celebrate it.

We would rather see Alexandre Lacazette flourish at Lyon, simply because of our Arsenal links, rather than see Tino flourishing at the same club, even though he is someone who plays for our national team.

We would rather erase the history of our football, the exploits of such legends like Japhet Muparutsa, simply because in our little minds, we have told ourselves that football in this country started this millennium.

We lead the poisoning of the minds of the fans, by transforming ourselves into false prophets who preach the false gospel that the Dream Team were a useless side, simply they couldn’t make it to a 12-team AFCON finals.

Then, we hail the current Warriors, as the greatest, simply because they regularly take part in a 24-team AFCON, which now resembles an invitational tournament, which features about half the CAF members.

Japhet Mparutsa and his Warriors didn’t have such a luxury of qualifying for such a 24-team AFCON, they only had to try and make it among just SIX countries, who qualified, to join the hosts and the holders.

At the age of 18, he was already good enough to play for the STRONGEST AND MOST COMPETITIVE Dynamos team of All-Time.

The one which represented these Glamour Boys between 1980 and 1984, the ones who first played in the CAF Champions League, beat the likes of JS Kabylie of Algeria and thrashed the likes of Shooting Stars of Nigeria.

We can’t let people bury the rich history of our football, back when clubs from Southern and Eastern Africa were crushed, with a streak of ruthlessness, by these Glamour Boys.

They were mismatches – Linare of Lesotho conceded SIX, HTMF Mahajanga of Madagascar conceded FIVE at home, and chose not to travel for Harare, AFC Leopards of Kenya conceded FIVE in Harare.

In their first four campaigns in Africa’s premier inter-club tournament, Dynamos played 19 matches, won EIGHT, drew SIX and lost FIVE, back in the days when going to play in many parts of the continent, was to play against the host team, and the referee.

We can’t let them bury such amazing history.

We can’t let our kids, Ngedwa included, not be taught about the likes of Japhet Mparutsa, an iconic goalkeeper who redefined the parameters, of both achievements and movements, for goalkeeping in this country.

In 1982, he made history when he became the first ’keeper to be handed the honour of being Soccer Star of the Year.

It was a seismic moment for domestic football, a huge leap forward, for local goalkeepers.

It’s a measure of how difficult this is that 21 years would pass before another ’keeper would be handed such an honour.

That was Energy Murambadoro in 2003.

No other ’keeper has since been accorded such an honour.

Remarkably, among the 44 players who have won this award, since it was first introduced in 1969, when George Shaya took it home, only TWO ’keepers — Mparutsa and Murambadoro — have won it.

Mparutsa won it when competition was tight during the peak days of the likes of Shacky Tauro, Joel Shambo, Stanford “Stix” Mutizwa, Stanley Ndunduma, Kenneth Jere, Misheck Chidzambwa, Byron Manuel, Joseph Zulu, to name but a few.

He still remembers it all, as if it happened yesterday.

“I leapt to my feet and tears of joy flooded my eyes,” he recalls. “I made my way to the podium, hardly seeing where my feet were landing.

“I was in my own world and my mind was in a spin.

“I remembered all those years spent on the streets of Mbare, chasing after improvised plastic footballs.”

Mparutsa and Mutizwa were also the first local footballers to invest in houses in Mabelreign in 1984, setting a trend for those who followed.

Forty years after his finest hour, the legend of the Short Cat still lives and it’s our job to ensure the likes of Mr Ronaldo not only know about it but also appreciate it.

To God Be The Glory!

Peace to the GEPA Chief, the Big Fish, George Norton, Daily Service, Sitting Bull, Crazy Horse and all the Chakariboys still in the struggle.

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

Ronaldoooooooooooooooooooooo!

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