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Phillip Zulu in LEEDS, England

ZIMBABWE’S last two fixtures of the doomed 2022 World Cup campaign points to a frightening picture of a game on its deathbed. 

The anxiety has brought more questions than answers as we ponder on the remaining fixtures, against South Africa and Ethiopia. 

The fact that Norman Mapeza has been given a short period to salvage some pride, when Zdravko Logarusic single-handedly devoured all the gains achieved, paints an ugly picture. 

Our Warriors tonight face a rejuvenated South African team, full of youngsters, who have raised the bar of qualification hopes.

They are relying on mostly players who represented them at the Olympic Games in Tokyo, Japan. 

When the Zimbabwe Under-23 team had a good opportunity to qualify for Olympics in Tokyo, the lack of strategic planning led to this paralysis where we still invite 35-year-olds, into the senior team. 

South Africa took this opportunity seriously and planted their seeds and they are now reaping the benefits, with the youthful players taking the initiative to try and take their country to the World Cup in Qatar next year. 

That Bafana Bafana masterplan was to try and qualify for the 2026 World Cup, not the one in Qatar, shows the vision of their football leaders. 

South Africa’s resurgence is not accidental, they trusted a proven football process, which critically engages youth development structures, to come up with a new crop of players. 

In sharp contrast, we have been doing the opposite. 

Mapeza has even raised his voice on the non-existence of youth structures, which should be engaged in talent identification, nurturing and developing players, for the future of our game, the foreign markets and ultimately, all our national teams. 

The recent call-up of Bill Antonio is welcome but this is a great opportunity to invite more youngsters into the team. 

By continuously inviting the same veterans, who are past their best, like the likes of Thabani Kamusoko, we have been shooting ourselves in the foot. 

Time is not on our side, we have the AFCON finals in Cameroon in January 2022, and yet we are not uprooting the stumps that have stagnated the development of our national team. 

The shame of our football hinges on:

 Lack of understanding of how modern junior and youth football works. 

Mediocre coaching structures at junior and youth levels. 

Cartels subverting the selection process of junior national teams and, in the process, compromising the quality of player development. 

Lack of a robust and intensive football plan that provides us with our national vision in the short, medium and long-term strategies. 

Recklessness in managing the local game, poor policies of licensing of clubs in terms of increasing capacity, and expanding the development of juniors under every club, in the elite leagues. 

Football stagnation and failure to stop the rot, the models in use are outdated and are from 50 years ago. 

Our football has failed to evolve and change for the better. 

These last two games should have given us the insight of how our emerging young players could have performed in these fixtures. 

Instead, in our national squad, we still have a number of the same old horses who have failed us in the past. 

We have just blown a golden chance to lay the foundation for our future.