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IT’S very likely Zimbabwe international midfielder Marvelous Nakamba will today make his English Premiership debut when Aston Villa visit last season’s UEFA Champions League losing finalists, Tottenham Hotspur, in London.

If that happens, Nakamba will be the first Warrior to feature in the world’s most glamourous, and best supported to-flight league, since Benjani Mwaruwari played his final match for Blackburn Rovers eight years ago.

Nakamba’s landmark move has created a buzz across the entire country and could not have come at a better time for our national game given the deflation that followed the Warriors’ poor showing at the 2019 AFCON finals in Egypt.

It has revived interest in the game and, crucially, from a national point of view, it has provided our country with positive headlines and stories around the world as the global football audience feasts on his Cinderella tale which has seen him move from Hwange to the apex league of the English Premiership.

After the negativity generated by Zimbabwe Cricket’s suspension from the International Cricket Council, (ICC), Nakamba’s fairytale has seen us being cast in positive light across a world charmed by how he has defied the odds to take his talent to the English Premiership.

But, now that the action begins, the focus will shift to what Nakamba can do, in that Aston Villa shirt, and every move will be analysed, every run will be recorded, every mistake will be scrutinised and, if he does well, they will glorify him and if he performs badly, they will crucify him.

The English Premiership is different from the French, Dutch and Belgian leagues where Nakamba has played since moving to Europe as a mere 16-year-old.

Its pace is furious, the intensity of the battles is ferocious and opponents are tough and Nakamba will have to make the adjustment very quickly for him to do well.

Already we have seen Arsenal manager Unai Emery telling the world he is considering delaying giving his record club-signing Nicolas Pepe, the Cote d’Ivoire international, a debut in the English Premiership because he wants him to first adjust to the demands of the league.

Although the Gunners paid £72 million to get the Ivorian winger from French club Lille, Emery is concerned that his slim frame could expose him, if he is thrown straight into the deep end, and wants him to add extra muscle for him to face the tough Premiership defenders.

We have no reason to doubt Nakamba’s pedigree, after all we have seen his development from a front-row seat into a combative midfielder who never shies from the intensity of the battles fought.

But we are also aware of that he carries a herculean burden on his shoulders because of the expectation that his arrival at Villa has created and the big money, £12 million, which the club paid to secure his services for, at least, the next five years.

Unlike Peter Ndlovu, who arrived at Coventry City in 1991 as a virtually unknown 18-year-old, and did not have the pressure of having to deliver from the word go, Nakamba arrived at Villa with a reputation as a footballer who has already done well in the UEFA Champions League when he turned out for Belgian side Club Brugge.

That means he doesn’t have the time, which Peter Ndlovu had, to develop in the system but will be expected to deliver, from the word go, and that is why he needs to ensure he makes the right impressions, if he is given the chance, and win the hearts of the Villa fans.

Nakamba is also fighting for the cause of Zimbabwean footballers because, if he does well, there is no doubt that it will create the right impression, among potential suitors, that there are a lot of rich pickings that can be found in local football.

Given that the Warriors usually play just a few games at the AFCON finals, and have never qualified for the World Cup finals, our footballers have not had the chance — like their counterparts in West and North Africa — to use the major international football tournaments to show the world that they have the talent to shine in some of the major leagues in Europe.

That is why Nakamba’s presence in the English Premiership could be a game-changer because there is a tendency, among scouts, that if a player from a certain country does very well, it provokes interest in them to go and search for similar talent in those countries.

When Peter Ndlovu started shining for Coventry, we saw the interest, in Zimbabwean footballers, that this generated and a number of those who played in the Dream Team during the early and mid-90s, ended up being snatched up by clubs in Europe.

That is why we believe that the dreams of the next generation of our footballers, the teenage footballers dotted around the country, who think they can one day scale the heights and play in the English Premiership, could be boosted if Nakamba does as well as we believe he can.

The ball is in his court and the test begins from today right throughout the European winter.