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I’M not sure whether it has been a crude product of the toxic politics of the last 15 years but you get a feeling we have, generally, become a nation that is weighed down by negativity. And nowhere is this negativity more pronounced than in our sport. With social media providing every one of us with a platform to pour out our frustrations, as and when we choose to do so, you only need to go on Facebook and Twitter, after a Warriors’ game, to see how negative we have become as a people.

If they win, as they did in Ndola to book their place to South Africa, our cancer of negativity blinds us from seeing the grandness of the achievement that they were the first visiting team to beat Zambia, in an international in their Ndola fortress, since 1968, and all that we do is quickly dismiss it as a mere CHAN qualifier.

Fair and fine, CHAN is a third-rate international football tournament that is a very poor cousin of the Nations Cup.
But if there was nothing special about their landmark victory in Ndola, because our negativity genes forced us to undermine the tournament they were playing in rather than attach value to their sensational result, why then have we suddenly gone into overdrive, in our criticism of the team, now that they have drawn their first two games at the CHAN finals?

If their victory in Ndola wasn’t one that carried its weight in gold, simply because we dismissed the event as nothing but a CHAN qualifier, why then does a couple of draws, at the CHAN finals, drive our adrenalin to explosive levels to blast this team for being embarrassing sporting ambassadors for us?

Suddenly, because the Warriors have drawn their first two games at the CHAN finals, the negative colours have come out and we have seen a lot of hate messages in the past week and, in a flash, a tournament that was dismissed as valueless, just to undermine that victory in Ndola, has assumed a lot of importance.

And, boy oh boy, we have poured out our hatred of the coaching staff, because it contains too many people with Dynamos links — Gorowa, Pasuwa, Muzadzi — our hatred of the team because it contains lots of DeMbare players and, to make it worse, is also captained by a Glamour Boy, Partson Jaure, and his assistant, Masimba Mambare, is also from the same stable.

For some it hasn’t been about this DeMbare link but just an obsession with everything they believe is negative about us, and the national football team features very high on their list, and when it fails, as it usually does, they use that as part of their ammunition to paint this ugly picture of this country.

Reading some of the comments, you have to ask yourself twice if these guys still see themselves as Zimbabweans or, in the course of time, they have evolved to assume another identity, maybe just an imaginary United Nations citizenship.

I’m not the only one who has apparently seen this negativity.
Ian Zvoma, the broadcaster, is one of the sober voices in sports journalism in this country, a fine gentleman who was seemingly born to be loved by everyone who comes across him and, being a Liverpool man, he has been wondering, quite loudly, why a lot of us want the Warriors to walk alone.

“I love you Warriors, you are my number one team through thick and thin,” he screemed on his Facebook page this week. “Vasingade tsvagai dzimwe nyika maborder akavhurwa . . . Proudly Zimbabwean.”

Trevor Jakachira has made his name in the music industry, as Sulu Chimbetu’s manager, but long before his attachment with Dendera music and its moving lyrics, “Ndarangarira musi watisiya gamba, Mwana wenyu amai, Amire panguva yakaoma,” long before the Warriors stood “panguva yakaoma”, as they do now in South Africa, football was always his first love.

This week, Jakachira also picked out the dark cloud of negativity that was hanging above us in the wake of the two draws recorded by the Warriors at the CHAN finals.

“I have been reading all those boring comments about our national team, some groups have taken that opportunity to talk of Shonas and Ndebeles. Shame on them,” Jakachira posted on his Facebook page.

“Some people have taken the opportunity to lambast individual players calling them Judas, shame on them. Some people have taken the opportunity to attack the technical team calling them names, shame on them. As much as we all want a win, which we did not get, an open minded Zimbabwean also looks at the positives.

“We are still to play one match, we put up good performances besides failing to score. We had greatly improved style of play. We are competing with countries whose players don’t go to SA looking for greener pastures. (The) national team will never be DeMbare. Dynamos remains Dynamos whose coach is the assistant to Gorowa.

“Those who say s*** about our team, kindly change citizenship and be South Africans, Ugandans, Nigerians. What we need in our last match is precision in front of goals. In Gorowa I trust.”

Misfiring Warriors, Still
Our Boys
The Warriors have two points, from as many games, at the CHAN finals and, at this stage, Gorowa and his men are virtually retracing the path walked by Sunday Chidzambwa, and his troops, when the first group of Warriors ventured into the CHAN finals at the inaugural tournament in Cote d’Ivoire five years ago.

A draw in their final game against Burkina Faso on Monday will see them ending with exactly the same report card as the Class of 2009 but, unlike Chidzambwa and his men who failed to progress beyond the group stages, Dibango and his troops could still squeeze into the quarter-finals, with just three points on the board, should results elsewhere further their cause.

Chidzambwa and his men have an alibi, it was our first appearance at the CHAN finals, they scored twice against Ghana in their drawn match, they matched eventual winners DRC in a 1-1 draw in a group game and, if skipper Gilbert Banda had not lost his composure and connected the final kick of the game against Libya, which also ended in a draw, they would have been full value for their semi-final ticket.
Back in 2009 only eight countries competed at the CHAN finals.

That both Ghana and DRC, who failed to beat the Warriors, with the Black Stars even coming from two goals down to force a draw, went all the way to the final, was a huge vote of confidence in the pedigree of that team which Chidzambwa took to Cote d’Ivoire.

The Class of 2014, by all accounts, should do better because, after two successive appearances at the CHAN finals, we are no longer novices at this tournament and, crucially, we sent a team that, when compared to two we sent to Cote d’Ivoire and Sudan, enjoyed the best preparations by spending close to a month in camp, sacrificing the Christmas holiday and enjoyed the benefits that came with being seeded in the tourney.

Of course, after two games, Gorowa and his Warriors have shown little to suggest that they will do better than those men who toiled in the searing Ivorian summer heat, for three points that took them nowhere, and while the pioneers had scored three goals at this stage, the current team are yet to break their duck at the tournament.

What has frustrated a lot of Warriors fans, and for a good reason too, is the fact that their team has been the better side, by a distance, in both matches against Morocco and Uganda, creating a number of very good chances, but somehow seemingly perfecting the art of blowing them away as if they have gone to South Africa to feature in a reality television show of how not to score goals.

Those Warriors fans have a right to ask questions, when their team is misfiring as has been the case in the last two games, and we should encourage the debate, generated by the team and its performance, it’s acceptable that they should be asking if Gorowa was right to invest all his trust, for the supply of goals, in Simba Sithole and Donald Ngoma as the cream of his frontline crew.

When your first-choice strikers have not only blown such gilt-edged chances, as the ones that have been created by the Warriors in their matches against Uganda and Morocco, but have toiled for about three hours in Cape Town, without a goal to show for their industry, the fans have a right to ask whether you picked the right men for the assignment.

When those people look at the statistics and they tell them that Simba Sithole struggled, for confidence, rhythm and goals, and always looked a shade too slow in his second coming at Dynamos at the back end of last season, they have a right to ask if he deserved to be the striker on whom a team, which had won their CHAN ticket without his services, could built all their trust for the supply of goals on.

When those people look at the statistics and they tell them that, for all the big-profile that Ngoma has carried since his arrival on the domestic Premiership with FC Platinum, he has failed to take his goal tally into double digits in a season, which then brings into question his pedigree as a sharpshooter who could be relied upon to get goals for an entire nation at such a stage, they have a right to ask some tough and inconvenient questions.

When those people question why Steven Sibanda, who came from nowhere to score a dozen goals for Buffaloes last season, was never considered to play for his country, in a team that is clearly short on quality when it comes to providing the cutting edge to their attack, the least we can do is to acknowledge their argument and encourage debate that it has generated.

But that is certainly different from disowning the team, simply because the coach decided that he saw a lot of value in Sithole and Ngoma, and in his wisdom, believed that they could deliver, at a bigger stage, than Sibanda, Jacob Muzokomba or any of the forwards who were left behind.

We cannot turn our back on our team, simply because the forwards are misfiring, because doing so would be a betrayal of the grand efforts that are being done by other departments like the team’s defence, which has been rock-solid from day one giving away very little to the opponents, and the midfield, which has tried to play its part without, of course, reaching the creative peak that Gorowa anticipated.
We can’t betray Hardlife Zvirekwi, who was outstanding in the first game he looked to be playing at a different level from the rest of the players on the pitch, including a number of men who only a few weeks ago were playing against Bayern Munich for the Fifa Club World Cup, simply because the other branches of the team are not performing, as well as we expect them to.

We can’t betray Kudakwashe Mahachi, who has been the standout performer of the entire CHAN tournament since the opening game of the tourney, bringing to the table a complete package that includes exceptional dribbling skills, superb movement off the ball, pace, a very productive shift in which he has created numerous chances for his teammates, simply because the others are not coming to the party.
Yes, they might have been Misfiring Warriors in the past two games, but they are our boys, and they need our support now, probably more than they did in the first two games, and the worst we can possibly do is to betray them now when, against all odds, they could become the first senior national football team from this country to make it beyond the group stages of a continental tournament.

Where Will The Goals
Come From?
That the Warriors are the only team in Group B, yet to SCORE a goal, at the CHAN finals, puts into perspective the gravity of our  shortcomings when it comes to getting goals and that has, of course, fed into the pessimism that hangs around the team right now that it can still make it come Monday.

Our case hasn’t been helped, to a large extent, by the fact that our two main target men, Ngoma and Sithole, have seen holes being blown into their confidence by some horrible misses in the first two games, and as many strikers will tell you, it’s never easy to get your game back quickly, in such pressure situations, where you have a game every four days.

But who says that only strikers should score?
Anyone in the forward line, once we leave that area patrolled by Jaure, Chipeta, Zvirekwi and Milton and Danny Phiri, should be looking at himself in the mirror today and asking why he isn’t giving more to the team, in terms of helping it getting the cutting edge that will deliver the goal, and I’m sure they all will see that they need to all play a part.

Ali Sadiki has had his chances, very good ones, but has fluffed his lines on the occasions, his header, on the blind side, was wayward against Uganda, and he rushed his effort, from a rebound, against Morocco, while we have seen very little of his main strength, the wicked balls that he puts into the box.

Kuda Mahachi has been unplayable, when in free-flow, and has been our best player but are we getting the best out of him keeping him isolated wide on the left or right flanks when he could, with his pace and trickery, likely cause more damage for the opposition coming through the middle where we have been trying Sadiki without a lot of success?

Crucially, we haven’t worked in tandem and when we have been dangerous on one wing, the other wing has been relatively quiet, giving the opposition coaches an easy solution to dealing with us, and while Mahachi was superb, down the left wing against Uganda, there was very little, if not nothing, that came down the right side.

The irony of it all is that both our wingbacks, whom we have pegged down to primarily perform defensive duties, Zvirekwi and Milton, play in advanced positions when they are playing for their clubs, CAPS United and Highlanders, and both have supplied some key goals for their teams.

Something has to give in on Monday, a third straight game without a goal would be disastrous for the Warriors and could possibly end their adventure at this CHAN tournament, and a goal, or goals, have to be mined from somewhere with some players finally coming to the party.

Gorowa can’t afford any changes, at this stage of the tournament, because bringing in a new man, and banking on him to ease his way into the team and settle into the rhythm of playing in the starting XI, in a make-or-break game, could be very risky, which leaves the coach with very few options.

The bright side for him is that his men have been the better team, in the two matches they have played, and where there is a will, there will always be a way, and they have to go for it now, it’s a winner-take-all scenario, and one gets the feeling that if these boys get a goal, it will free them from the chains that have been holding them back, and we could see the real Warriors standing up to be counted.

I’m not one of those who have given up on these Warriors, even though just like everyone else I have borne the brunt of the pain that has come with seeing them miss numerous chances that have come and gone, and that is why, even at this very late stage, I’m banking on these Warriors to score on Monday and also make history as they walk into the quarter-finals of a continental tourney for the first time.

It’s easy for us to watch from a distance and say Steven Sibanda would have done better, Jacob Muzokomba would have done better, Aleck Marime would have done better, but there is a big difference between playing for Buffaloes and Tripple B, and scoring for them in games against Triangle and Monomotapa, than leading the line for your country and, when the stage goes higher, as is the case with CHAN, it becomes a different ball game.

Let’s support the guys who are in camp, after all we can’t make any changes now, and, unlike that caller who took his frustrations into the newsroom of Star FM this week, urging Gorowa to “buy quality strikers for the team”, I believe those who are in camp are about to deliver.

Even if we don’t make it, let’s carry the positive spin, a league as poor as ours, which loses every decent player that it produces to South Africa, produced a team that was good enough to dominate a Moroccan side whose backbone played Bayern Munich and lost just 0-2 in the Fifa Club World Cup final.

Come on guys, that’s something to celebrate.

Saying Of The Week
“Manchester United were Goliath and, then, David came along. No need to explain what happened.”

To God Be The Glory!

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

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