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Robson Sharuko Senior Sports Editor

IT’S like the football gods have chosen the perfect script for Khama Billiat, after a decade of national service in the football trenches, fighting for the cause of his fatherland.

He will finally get the honour which comes with captaining one’s national team in a World Cup qualifier, when the Warriors date Bafana Bafana in Johannesburg, tonight.

 And the setting couldn’t have been more perfect for the diminutive Kaizer Chiefs forward who has just entered the tail-end phase of his international career.

The FNB Stadium, where he will lead his country for the first time in a World Cup qualifier under lights tonight is the Zimbabwe international’s home ground.

South Africa, the team his Warriors will battle, has been his adopted home since he first arrived there in July 2010 to join Ajax Cape Town.

Billiat arrived to find a South Africa gripped by the euphoria generated by the raw power of football, with the first World Cup to be hosted on African soil,in full swing.

Eleven years later, he finds himself captaining his country, in a World Cup qualifier, in the very stadium where the opening match, and the final, of that global football jamboree, were played.

He won’t feature at the next World Cup in Qatar.

His Warriors have already been eliminated from the race after just picking a point, out of their first four matches, in a miserable run.

That point came against Bafana Bafana, at the National Sports Stadium, in one of the poorest matches, at this level of the game, in which both teams huffed and puffed, shook hands and left for the comfort of their hotels.

Fast forward to this evening, and things have dramatically changed.

Bafana Bafana, under the guidance of AFCON-winning coach, Hugo Broos, are top of the table, after winning three straight games.

The man who was in charge of the Warriors, when they met in Harare, Zdravko Logarusic, is now jobless.

He was kicked out of his job after a shock 0-1 defeat to Ethiopia, with the ZIFA board member who headed the touring party to East Africa, Sugar Chagonda, writing a damning report, about the coach’s shortcomings.

“The long and short of it Mr President (Felton Kamambo), my recommendation is to part ways with Mr Logarusic immediately,’’ Changonda wrote in his damning report.

“Only a stubborn fly can follow the corpse to the grave. We need to immediately appoint a local coach to take over.

“He (Loga) has been given adequate time to prove his unworthiness and he has done that. Who needs him now because clearly our football doesn’t need him?’’

This is what brought Norman Mapeza, the man who will be sitting on the Warriors’ bench tonight, back into the fold.

Ironically, Mapeza is the coach who gave Billiat his first taste of international football exactly 10 years ago.

That was on March 26, 2011, when Mapeza threw the forward into the deep end in a 2012 AFCON qualifier against Mali in their fortress in Bamako.

Billiat was just 20 years, seven months and seven days old, when he was tossed into battle in the searing heat of Mali, at one of the toughest venues, in African football.

Three months later, against the same Malian Eagles, Billiat and his colleagues avenged the 0-1 loss they suffered in Bamako, with a nervy 2-1 win at Rufaro.

Knowledge Musona was the hero with his brace, including a winner converted from a penalty, in the very last minute of the game.

Musona and Billiat have been the face of the Warriors in the past decade and they will point to the leading role they played,in ending the country’s nine-year wait for a return to the AFCON finals as one of their  major achievements.

They will also point to three straight appearances at the Nations Cup finals, something which only their generation have achieved, as evidence they have served their country well.

It’s hard to blame them for the World Cup woes, when ZIFA, somehow, find it reasonable to give them a tourist like Loga, who has never been to the AFCON finals as a coach, to try and take them to the World Cup finals.

Billiat and his generation can argue they would have qualified for the 2018 World Cup finals and we can’t dispute those claims because we never gave them a chance to try their luck.

Their expulsion from the qualifiers, for the sins of their football leaders, who failed to settle a debt owed to Brazilian coach, Valinhos, was a very low point, in the history of the Warriors.

Despite all those frustrations, including being forced to undertake a dangerous overnight road trip to Malawi, where he scored the winner, Billiat and his colleagues have remained loyal to the national cause.

Tonight, the diminutive forward will be playing his 41st international match, for his country, with 14 goals to his credit.

Twenty one matches have been AFCON qualifiers, in which he has scored 10 goals, eight have been World Cup qualifiers, in which he has two goals while six have been at the Nations Cup finals, where he has one goal.

Five games have been international friendlies. It’s been a long shift for Billiat, spanning 3208 minutes, which is 53 hours and 46 minutes of action, for his country, scoring a goal every three games, winning 15 matches, drawing 12 and losing 13.

Most of the losses have come in the chaos of the past few years, as the Warriors staggered in the darkness.

But, for Billiat and his generation, the urge to serve their nation still outweighs the challenges they face in camp.

Another victory tonight looks unlikely, although not impossible.

For Billiat, getting one over Bafana Bafana might taste sweeter, especially with the armband, on his shirt.

Of course, he knows, nothing lasts forever and, one day, when he finally leaves the international scene, he can always point to that godlen moment, when he led his country, in a World Cup qualifier.