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Sharuko on Saturday
THE global football community has been grieving all week, shedding tears for the players and coaches of a lightweight Brazilian club that dared to challenge the establishment in a remarkable adventure that held the world spellbound, who perished in that horrific plane crash in Colombia.

More than 50 000 fans of Colombian side Atletico National packed their Estadio Atanasio Girardst on Wednesday night to provide a moving tribute of glowing sights and captivating sounds to their fallen opponents, who left their Brazilian base on Monday, but never arrived for the first leg of the 2016 Copa Sudamericana final showdown.

Chapecoense’s stunning rise from obscurity, transforming themselves from just a small-town club into a giant that reached the final of a tournament that is South American football’s version of the UEFA Europa League and the CAF Confederation Cup, had captured the imagination of the entire football world.

But on the journey to the biggest game in their history, fate conspired to provide a cruel closing chapter to their adventure when the chartered plane they were travelling in to Colombia ran out of fuel and was crippled by catastrophic electrical failure before it plunged down just a few kilometres from their destination.

Seventy one people, including 19 players and 21 journalists, perished in that plane crash, leaving us to deal with some tough questions that will never be answered, wondering why such a remarkable journey had to end in such tragic circumstances and why such beautiful dreams had to be shattered in such a cruel fashion.

But amid the flood of tears, football — just like life itself — must go on.

For there have been plane crashes before in the past 70 years, wiping out entire sports teams, and — as sure as the fact that summer will follow the beauty that comes with spring — there will be plane crashes in the future, which will certainly kill some of the world’s finest athletes and its greatest coaches.

But despite the horror inflicted by these disasters, the world has somehow found a way to go on. That is why today, the biggest and most glamorous club football showdown in the world, El Clasico, will go ahead before an estimated 100 000 fans at Barcelona’s Camp Nou this afternoon, with more than $1 billion worth of talent in action, a global television audience of more than 400 million people and a mainstream and social media frenzy that will feast on the drama and dominate the global buzz during the 90 minutes of the titanic battle.

And back home, league champions CAPS United will stage their open-top bus parade in Harare and Chitungwiza today, to thank their home fans — after having won the championship on the road in Gweru — with the club paying tribute to people whose patience, to wait for 11 years for their beloved team to win another league championship, was the stuff that true supporters are made of.

The party will, fittingly, end at the National Sports Stadium, where the Green Machine built a fortress and refused to be beaten all seaso, even on the occasion when they trailed their biggest rivals — Dynamos— by three goals with just five minutes left on the clock in that unforgettable match, which was probably the Game of the Year.

Last night, the domestic football family converged in Harare for the Premiership’s annual prize-giving gala with CAPS United players, Hardlife Zvirekwi and Leonard Tsipa dominating the ceremony as the defender took home the gong for best player while the ageless forward went home with the Golden Boot and also finished second in the race for the Golden Ball. Not since Malawian international Joseph Kamwendo won the Soccer Star of the Year in 2005, has a CAPS United player been honoured as the best footballer in the domestic Premiership and that the top award went to Zvirekwi was fitting because he earned his stripes in his 28 league matches, where he put in 2 500 minutes and provided five assists, while also starring for the Warriors in their 2017 AFCON campaign.

A DEAD HEAT THAT REMINDS ME OF NINETY SIX

It’s now 21 years since I lasted voted for the Soccer Star of the Year, having last cast my vote in 1995 when Tauya Murewa, a forward so good during his prime that the media called him “The Flying Doctor”, his nickname steeped in the roots of his medical field at a time he was a student at the University of Zimbabwe, won the award.

A year later, having been elevated to the chairmanship of the Sportswriters Association of Zimbabwe, I couldn’t cast a vote but had to oversee the ceremony and I was part of the few people allowed to witness the final counting which saw Stewart Murisa being crowned Soccer Star of the Year, an accolade he richly deserved.

Twenty years later, on Tuesday, I was part of the panel of elders who supervised the voting process for the 2016 Soccer Star of the Year, and I think the panel did a pretty decent job in selecting the XI players and settling for Zvirekwi as the best player on the domestic scene this season even though it wouldn’t have been a travesty of justice if Tsipa had won it.

Just like in 1996, when Murisa deservedly won the award, it wouldn’t have been out of order if the people who voted had given the award to Alois Bunjira, who shone like a beacon all season that year, leaving the sponsors of the league back then, BAT Zimbabwe, to comfort him with the Kingsgate Player of the Year award.

The case for Tsipa was largely sentimental and in such awards, it counts a lot.

A player in the twilight of his career, running on 35-year-old legs, which have been taking a lengthy battering in the tough trenches of the domestic game for more than 16 years, written off as a spent force a few years ago and then suddenly finding a new lease of life to win the Golden Boot as CAPS United found a way to banish the ghosts allergic to the sweet smell of championship success, which had stalked the Green Machine for more than a decade, Tsipa was simply brilliant.

Ravaged by injuries throughout a career in which he gave more than his fair share towards the CAPS United cause, Tsipa’s longevity on the big stage has been a model in an unforgiving industry where a number of young players, consumed by the demons of fame, have failed to last the distance and, like shooting stars, faded into the horizon even before reaching the peak of their athletic powers.

But a return of just 11 goals in 22 league matches in a season when the domestic forwards were once again infected by the Kaizer Chiefs’ syndrome, whose symptoms are a severe lack of goals all year, was always going to be a shade too little for the Golden Ball, even though the Golden Boot provided cold comfort in possibly his last serious attempt to join the likes of Murisa, Kamwendo, George Nechironga, Energy Murambadoro and Cephas Chimedza as CAPS United sons who won the Soccer Star of the Year award.

Those fighting in Tsipa’s corner will say that 10 of his goals came in a winning cause for the Green Machine, which illustrates their weight in gold, and the other came right at the death to rescue a priceless point against ZPC Kariba at Rufaro and in a season where he dwarfed players half his age on the scoring charts, it should have been enough to win him the Soccer Star of the Year. But they, too, will probably agree that Zvirekwi richly deserved it after shining in the 28 league matches he played for his side, providing five assists, having been pushed back into the right wingback defensive role by Lloyd Chitembwe this season after having played the majority of last year in an advanced role down that flank, where defending was not really part of his primary duties.

That he is the only in-field player in the domestic Premiership to feature regularly for the Warriors, who booked a ticket to Gabon added weight to his cause — even though the consideration has to be what he does in the league — and it’s refreshing, too, to see that this year he dumped his bad boy image, the rebel who usually lit the blue torch paper in leading player rebellions at the club, as he concentrated on improving his game.

And in a season where the best forward had 11 league goals, it was possibly only right that a defensive-minded player gets the top gong and those who have seen Zvirekwi dump his rebellious streak this year smile when you call him Nairobi, even though it provides a reminder of an ordeal that showed us his limitations when it comes to international travel, where keeping your passport is one of the most important things, will tell you the big award would not have gone to a nicer guy.

Or a better professional.

SPARE A THOUGHT,

OF COURSE, FOR BRUCE

That Bruce Kangwa never made the top XI, even when he was the best player in the first half of the season by a country mile was an aberration and one of the biggest shame stories that emerged from what was largely a decent shift by the panel that voted for this season’s Soccer Stars of the Year.

Of course, Bruce played half the season, but with the regulations saying a player needs a minimum of 10 games to qualify for selection, he should have made the cut without any shade of doubt among the best XI and in my little book, even among the best three if our panelists had not suffered from the sickness of quickly forgetting what happened in the first half of the season.

That Bruce thrived in his new role as a forward, leading the scoring charts in his first season in attack and, crucially, providing the cutting edge for a club as huge as Highlanders, was special and Bosso would probably have ended 10 years of waiting for the league championship had he stayed the full course and not been poached by the Tanzanian Moneybags.

In a campaign when Hwange’s Gift Mbweti, who played the entire season, owes his place on the Soccer Stars of the Year list to the nine goals he scored, in a campaign when FC Platinum’s Walter Musona, who played the entire season owes his place on the Soccer Stars of the Year list to the nine goals he scored, isn’t it an insult to the virtues of Fair Play and justice that a former fullback, in his first season as a forward, who scored seven goals in just the first five months of the season, isn’t rewarded for his great work?

How does a player, who won THREE successive Player of the Months awards, in the same campaign, in June, July and August, suddenly fail to make the final list of XI players in a campaign that lasted seven months?

“I don’t have any idea as to which other player in the league is currently playing better than Bruce,” his Dutch manager Elroy Akbay told this newspaper in August.

“He is a star, he likes to play football, that is why I changed him from being a defender to a striker. He certainly deserves the awards. I am certainly worried about Bruce’s imminent departure. He had proven to be the match winner for my team. Of course, we play as a team but one thing for certain, Bruce is the cog.

“We do not stand in his way, but it will be a daunting task to look for someone who can actually replace him. HE IS A SPECIAL PLAYER.”

That Bosso struggled after his departure says it all.

AND WHAT DOES THIS

SAY ABOUT TATENDA?

You got to feel for the Warriors’ number one ‘keeper, Tatenda Mukuruva, too, and that his name hardly featured among the selectors in the battle for the best XI players of the season is worrying, especially when one takes into account the fact that this is the man who will provide the last line of defence for our national team in Gabon.

He was my best player last season, even though the award went to Danny Phiri because I felt that, for a young man, fresh out of high school, to establish himself as the number one ‘keeper at Dynamos, and all the demands that come with such a daunting task and then force his way to become the Warriors’ number one, was simply sensational.

It’s certainly not his fault that he played behind a questionable DeMbare defence, in a team that never challenged for the title, but one is tempted to feel that this young man is getting a sense that he is a victim of rejection by the domestic game, and he only now has his national coach Callisto Pasuwa for an ally.

There are some critics who now even doubt his pedigree and even believe he could prove the Warriors’ Achilles Heel in Gabon, with some even citing his diminutive frame as the reason why they fear the worst when the West and African heavyweight forwards come to bully him in the penalty box in January. And they have been exerting pressure on the young man, leaving him to battle the psychological demons that come with such questions and possible rejection, and the fact that the panellists decided he wasn’t even good enough, not only to make it among the best XI but, crucially, not even to feature close to that arena, will only boost the doubts.

Tatenda badly needs a comforting arm, and if there was a time for Pasuwa to give assurance to his man that he remains the best in his position, because I’m getting this feeling that the young man is getting an impression he is a victim of rejection and it brings the demons of doubt and, for a goalkeeper, that could be disastrous for a team.

But who are we to talk about tomorrow when, as the those doves of Chapecoense showed us when, just like that, they were engulfed by darkness in that disaster in Colombia that has left all of us, who love this game dearly, with broken hearts?

TO GOD BE THE GLORY!

Come on Warriors!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Khamaldinooooooooooooooooooo!

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