The ManicaPost
THE long wait is finally over and it is time to rally behind our beloved senior soccer national team — the Warriors — as they make yet another attempt to hog the limelight on the international stage at the Africa Cup of Nations in Cairo, Egypt today.
It is a quest for glory that unites us as Zimbabweans, and more importantly as a people with one flag.
This is the reason we will all hug, cuddle and ululate in celebration each time our dear Warriors find the target.
It is for the same reason that we will all shake our heads in agony and disbelief each time our beloved Warriors concede.
That our dear Warriors will face the hosts — the mighty Pharaohs of Egypt — in the opening encounter will surely put into perspective our pedigree as a serious football playing nation.
While we might be wearing the underdog tag, especially in the opening encounter, there is every reason to keep the faith and hope for a result that puts smiles on our faces.
After all, every team in that tournament will field eleven players that make up a team on the pitch. The players are all humans.
Yes, there have been some bitter lessons drawn so far in our participation in this competition even before the ball has been kicked.
The Warriors are the only team in Group A of the 2019 Afcon finals without a home-based player in their squad, in yet another powerful expression of how the standards of domestic Premiership, battered by an exodus of its fine talent, poor funding for clubs and shoddy administration, have plummeted.
The Pharaohs of Egypt, whom the Warriors take on in the continental football showpiece opener today (Friday), have the biggest contingent of home-based players, with all their three goalkeepers plying their trade in the local league.
While we all know that they have a larger than life star in Liverpool forward Mohammed Salah, probably the tournament’s biggest star, the Egyptians have always built their national team success stories on the foundation of their home-based crew in a country that has traditionally kept most of its outstanding players at home.
The Ugandan Cranes, whom the Warriors meet in their second Group A match, have four players drawn from their local league.
The Democratic Republic of Congo has five home based players.
Even our neighbours, South Africa, have 17 players drawn from the local ABSA Premiership League, easily making them the team with the biggest contingent of home based players.
In fact, the Warriors are just one of the five teams in the 2019 Afcon finals who have no home-based players within their ranks.
Others are Cameroon, Senegal, Burundi and Guinea.
This is not a healthy situation for our game given that the domestic top flight league must be the yardstick of the development of the game in any given nation.
It is our hope that this serves as a wake-up call to those entrusted with running the affairs of the most beautiful and best supported game in the country.
Followers of the game badly need the revival of the fiery battles that used to characterise domestic club football.
Be that as it may, it is incumbent upon all progressive citizens, mainly those that follow the game of football and to some extent even those that do not understand it, to support our national team.
Getting the results we want in Egypt is certainly not going to be an easy task but it can, all the same, be achieved.
The good thing about such international competitions is that, for a moment, we will put aside our domestic club differences and rally behind one team.
For a moment, we will put aside our tribal, religious or racial differences and rally behind one team.
Indeed, for that special moment, we will be identified by one name and that is none other than the Warriors of Zimbabwe.
Go Warriors Go!
