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FOOTBALL is the country’s national game and when it sneezes, the entire sporting fraternity appears to catch a cold.

It is the people’s sport, loved by millions of Zimbabweans and played by millions, either in its amateur ranks, like the weekend social matches, or the professional ranks, like our Premier Soccer League.

Although we are a nation with a diversified portfolio of sporting codes, there is no doubt that football is the king, dwarfing all the other disciplines, in terms of the numbers, who follow the beautiful game.

We have always prided ourselves, as Zimbabweans, that we are a blessed country, one of just two African nations, the other one being South Africa, good enough to play cricket at Test level.

We have Africa’s most decorated Olympian, Kirsty Coventry, who is our Minister of Youth, Sport, Arts and Recreation while our golfer, Nick Price, once occupied the number one ranking in the world, after winning three major golf titles.

We have produced a world diving champion, Evan Stewart, while a number of our players have left this country to help other nations win the Rugby World Cup.

The New Zealand team, which stunned cricket powerhouse India, to win the inaugural Test Championship, featured a former Zimbabwe international, Collin de Grandhomme, who represented this country at the 2004 Under-19 ICC Cricket World Cup.

The Curran brothers, who are starring for the England cricket team, are former Zimbabwe youth internationals and we could go on and on.

Even in football itself, our boys have left a mark, with Peter Ndlovu having the honour of being the first African footballer to feature in the English Premiership.

Goalkeeper Bruce Grobbelaar was the first African footballer to win the European Cup, now known as the Champions League, with English giants Liverpool.

However, it’s very clear right now that our national game is lying on its deathbed, needing life support, as it battles a number of serious challenges.

The embarrassing sequence of defeats the Warriors suffered, during the COSAFA Cup, which comes to an end in South Africa tomorrow, once again highlights the challenges confronting our national game.

In a tournament where we have been the dominant country, with a record six titles, the Warriors broke records for all the wrong reasons, as they crashed out of the tourney as the worst side among the 10 nations that took part.

We finished bottom of a group, which we were fancied to win, after losing two matches, and drawing as many games, with our boys struggling to even do the basics like stringing together four passes, among themselves.

The leadership, which we expected from our coach, Zdravko Logarusic, was not there, and the Croatian gaffer, a controversial pick for the job by ZIFA, appeared out of depth, even at this level of a regional football tournament.

With just one win, in a dozen matches in charge of his team, Loga has been a failure and is struggling to justify the reason why our football leaders settled on him, to improve our Warriors.

Our proud six-year unbeaten record, in open play, at the COSAFA Cup, went up in smoke, as they were beaten by both Namibia and guest nation Senegal.

The poor performance at the COSAFA Cup also mirrored the team’s lifeless show at the CHAN finals, where his Warriors also broke records, for all the wrong reasons, after losing all the matches, in Cameroon.

And, just like at the regional tournament, our national team ended up as the worst of all the participating teams at the CHAN finals in Cameroon.

Apart from the results and the statistics, the Warriors have not shown any signs of improvement in terms of style of play, tactics and even the way they are structured, on the field of play, under Loga’s guidance.

The ZIFA board have said they will review the team’s poor show at the COSAFA Cup, after receiving technical reports and this will help them try to find solutions to the challenges affecting the team.

The problem is that we have had this before and nothing has changed.

When our Young Warriors suffered the embarrassment of being thrown out of the COSAFA Under-17 tournament last year, for fielding an over-aged player, we were told that heads would roll for that national humiliation.

Of course, this was just meant to manage the situation, amid the national backlash provoked by that humiliation and, once the fans had changed their focus, to other matters of the game, the issue was swept under the carpet.

We get a feeling that’s what the ZIFA leaders, who are themselves as culpable, as Loga, for the way our Warriors have suddenly turned into a punching bag, are trying here.

They are just buying time, knowing that by September, focus would have turned to the World Cup qualifiers, and all the fury generated by the way the Warriors have been humiliated in recent weeks, would have disappeared.

The Warriors do not belong to ZIFA, they are a team which belongs to this country – the people elected to run the game at a national level, only control this team on behalf of this nation.

These people hold this team in trust, on behalf of everyone who calls himself, or herself, a Zimbabwean and they have a responsibility to ensure they manage it in the best way possible.

Sadly, this isn’t what we are seeing right now and our woes are not being helped, when it comes to the Warriors, by a coach who appears clueless, at this level of the game.