Eddie Chikamhi
Senior Sports Reporter
GLOBETROTTING Belgian coach Tom Saintfiet is writing a fairy-tale story for himself, and debutants Gambia, at the 2021 African Cup of Nations finals in Cameroon.
The 48-year-old gaffer has led surprise packages from West Africa to the last eight of the continent’s premier football competition.
This is a remarkable feat that has somehow eluded giants like Ghana, Algeria and Nigeria this year. Saintfiet was on top of the world on Monday after his side beat Guinea 0-1 to keep alive their dream run at the competition.
In a case of the rock that the builders rejected turning to be the cornerstone elsewhere, this is the same coach who at some point could have worked with the Zimbabwe’s Warriors.
Ironically, his technical team when he was appointed by ZIFA in 2010, also had Norman Mapeza, who recently led Zimbabwe at the same tournament.
But while the Warriors were knocked out of the tournament in the group stages for the fifth time, the Scorpions have defied the odds.
They have gone on an unbeaten of four games after progressing from Group F as runners-up to Mali. They pulled off one of the tournaments’ biggest upsets when they beat 2004 champions Tunisia along the way.
Abdoulie Jallow’s dramatic stoppage time goal in the second half handed Gambia a 1-0 victory to seal their last 16 place. They then edged Guinea by the same scoreline, to book a dream date against hosts Cameroon in the AFCON quarter-finals this Saturday.
Gambia’s achievement was more remarkable as Saintfiet revealed the squad was affected by food poisoning on the eve of the encounter.
“We didn’t have a good feeling about today because many of us had food poisoning, including me. I didn’t sleep and was up at the toilet all the time, vomiting and with diarrhoea,” he told Canal Plus.
And now, Zimbabweans can only watch in awe as the lowly Gambians (ranked 150 on FIFA rankings) make history in continental football.
The tragedy about Saintfeit with Zimbabwe is that the coach cost the country about US$185 000 in compensation following a botched appointment by ZIFA.
Zimbabwe were also threatened with suspension from the 2022 Qatar World Cup qualifiers before a deal was thrashed to pay off the debt.
However, the Belgian coached the Warriors for just one day before he was deported for breaching the country’s immigration laws. The coach was found guilty of executing his duties without a work permit and the law took its course. The Belgian took his case to FIFA who then awarded him the damages in 2013.
His appointment to the Zimbabwe hot seat was mired in controversies after he had absconded from Namibia, where he still had two years running on his four-year deal.
Saintfeit has been with the Gambian team since July 2018 and this is the longest that the nomadic coach has stayed at one job.
The Belgian rarely spends two years with one employer. Since he left Zimbabwe 12 years ago, he has had 12 appointments across continents.
He coached Shabab Al-Ordon in Jordan, Ethiopia national team, Young Africans in Tanzania, Yemen national team, Malawi’s Flames, Free State Stars in South Africa, Togo national team, Bangladesh national team, Trinidad and Tobago national team, Malta National team and now Gambia.
He was briefly appointed technical advisor for Nigeria’s Super Eagles but the job did not materialise. Saintfiet was appointed by the Nigeria Football Federation in March 2012 but the Nigerian ministry of sports hinted three months later that there were many competent Nigerians and preferred a Nigerian instead of a foreign technical director. Therefore, he could not obtain work visa to enter Nigeria.
In a previous interview, the nomadic Saintfiet said apart from Zimbabwe and Nigeria, he had generally enjoyed working in Africa.
“I have had mostly good times except in Zimbabwe a few years ago when I had problems there and in Nigeria where I was doing well but politics intervened,” said Saintfiet.
“It will not be an emotional time for me to play the Warriors, my wife is from Zimbabwe and I consider myself half Zimbabwean.”
However, the Belgian’s appointment to the helm of the Warriors caused deep divisions within ZIFA and other football stakeholders in the country, who had wanted then acting coach Mapeza to be given the post on a permanent basis.
Mapeza had earned the respect of Warriors fans by getting Zimbabwe off to a promising start in the 2012 AFCON qualifiers with a 1-1 draw away to Liberia.