Opinion by Goodwill Zunidza
After shocks of Friday’s humiliating defeat to Lesotho at Orlando have only just hit home amid irate fans calling for serious soul-searching in the football corridors but pundits had long warned against expecting any joy from the Warriors’ current jaunt.
Even on the Sunday that the team departed for Johannesburg in several and individual batches, a top Premier Soccer League mentor called my number and confided in me that this was not the way a national team should conduct business.
“It will be foolhardy to anticipate any win out of such chaotic arrangements,” he charged on the phone.
Jairos Tapera’s men, himself appointed head coach a few days prior, failed to hold a single training session at home meaning they were not endowed with the national spirit before they left for battle.
Worse was that the Harare and Bulawayo contingent of the squad travelled separately and met for the first time in the unforgiving metropolis of Jo’burg where they teamed up with another truncated bunch arriving from UK, a duo from France and loners from Belgium, Saudi Arabia etc.
“From the onset, this does not make well for team bonding,” said my PSL coach, earlier in the conversation.
His words exploded into my face as the first of the games due in SA rolled off in my eyes and I was subjected to the most torturous football sights imaginable.
A Warrior team that couldn’t string three consecutive passes, dribbling bouts that always ended with the ball neatly taken away, horrific goalkeeping and weak shots on target was just part of the menu on offer.
Who can blame hapless coach Tapera, except only for accepting a task that was too big for him?
In spite of being a table-topper with Manica Diamonds, Tapera so easily got flattered by Trymore Machope’s vivid pre-match media spotlighting that he felt the newborn was more skilled than his Simba Bhora teammate Walter Musona who had netted a scorching free-kick against Nigeria in the same competition.
Musona rotted on the bench when he should have been the first name on Tapera’s team-sheet.
The Warriors now return to the slaughter-house on Tuesday as the World Cup qualifying campaign proceeds without waiting for anyone to put their house in order.
The tragicomedy moves to the Free State Stadium featuring bigger opponents, Bafana Bafana.
If I was the Zifa President I would do a Cote D’Ivoire, and change coaches in between a tournament.
Tapera, Takesure Chiragwi and Saul Chaminuka, check their playing and coaching backgrounds, make up the most unsuitable technical team ever to be thrust for such a demanding standing assiggnment.
The elite PSL gaffer, still with me on the line with me that Sunday, was not short of words for that anomaly too.
“We are chasing shadows,” he blustered.
“These coaches do not even know some of the players they will field. They were not given time to study the players selected for them.”
Tapera is the fourth coach for the Warriors inside a year since the Zifa Normalization Committee took office.
For some reason the committee seem incapacitated to make long-term appointments but they are not admitting the fact.
Sunday Chidzambwa, Baltemar Britto and Norman Mapeza have exchanged seats on the bench during that period and Chidzambwa is back with the team in South Africa, apparently as technical adviser, but his famed defensive tactics were not seen in the game against the Crocodiles.
Tapera actually blamed the unacceptable result on lapses in defence.
“We conceded two soft goals in the first half due to defensive blunders. But we had a much better performance in the second half. We will perform better in the second game ,” he promised in his post-match comments.
There are few who share his optimism for the second game.
Certainly not my pundit, who concluded our rich dialogue .
“This could be South Africa’s final chance to execute revenge for the 4-1 hammering we gave them in 1993.”
But all this mishandling of the men’s senior national team by Zifa can only indicate that the NC does not have a clear strategy for 2026 World Cup qualification and are only fielding a team to fulfill matches.
For example how Lesotho and South Africa were quick off the mark in naming their squads and psyching up the selected players a month before the crunch encounters.
Zifa waited for the 11th hour as if they had forgotten about their duty.
It was also learnt from South Africa that not enough had been done to mobilize Zimbabwean supporters in that country to attend the home match, the reason why the ground was not full to capacity and Zifa found nothing for their pockets for at least something to smile about.
A former player still based in Johannesburg told me Zifa did not market the match.
“They expect fans to come in uninvited. Even Bafana Bafana matches here are advertised. Zifa should have organized pick-up-points for easy travel for fans because it’s a hassle connecting between destinations even in one city.
“South Africans themselves always lay out an adequate and affordable public transport design for big games,” he said.
He added that for the “next” home game Zifa need to engage the Zimbabwean football community based in South Africa to bring about an enjoyable hosting experience away from home.
The first two qualifiers in Rwanda, one being a home match, were similarly fraught with administrative and tactical shortcomings.
One retired referee I met in the aftermath of the Lesotho disaster however sees a different picture emerging from the Bafana tie.
“We should nail this one. It happens often that our players do poorly in the first game because they do not know each other as thanks to Zifa they will not have played together before,” he began.
“But as they get used to each other after the first match they normally blend.”
Goodwill ‘Mann Goodaz” Zunidza is a veteran sports reporter and former Sunday Mail Sports Editor.
He writes in his own capacity.
