Ray Bande
Senior Reporter
CHIPINGE-BORN football sensation, Munyaradzi Makwanya’s meteoric rise to stardom continues unabated after securing a lucrative move to Polish top-tier outfit, Wistula Cracow, marking a remarkable three-year milestone since his breakthrough in Europe with KSPN Pogon Krakow Academy.
Speaking from his Polish base, Makwanya (22) told Post Sport: “I was in Chipinge two week ago enjoying my holiday, and boom something like this happens.
“I cannot even believe that I got a chance like this. To be honest with you, I just believe that I will reach the level of Mo Salah.”
Towarzystwo Sportowe Wiska Akcyjna, commonly referred to as Wis?a Kraków (Polish pronunciation) is a Polish professional football club based in Kraków.
They currently compete in the I liga, the second level of Polish football league system, following relegation from the 2021/22 Ekstraklasa season.
Such is the prominence of Makwanya’s new team that it ranks fourth in the number of national titles won (13), behind Górnik Zabrze, Ruch Chorzów (both on 14), and Legia Warsaw (15), and second in all-time victories.
Wis?a was founded in 1906 under the name TS Wis?a (Polish: Towarzystwo Sportowe Wis?a).
Wis?a Kraków is one of the most successful Polish football clubs of 2000s, winning eight league championships since 1999.
Along with league titles, Wis?a also won the Polish Cup on five occasions, including the first-ever edition in 1926, and are the current cup holders.
Wis?a also enjoyed some success in European competitions in the 1970s, reaching the quarter-finals in the 1978/79 European Cup.
However, for Makwanya, this is a milestone achievement for a youngster who grew up in the dusty streets of Gaza in the farming town of Chipinge.
What started as a mere video upload of his son’s sublime football skills on the social media platform by his dad, catapulted the then 19-year-old son to KSPN Pogon Krakow Academy in Poland.
Makwanya’s rise saw him settle at this professionally run Polish academy after having had a stint at Stamina Academy in Johannesburg in South Africa.
Young Makwanya did Form One to Three at Gaza High School, before transferring to Gideon Mhlanga High School for his Form Four.
Back then when he made the big break into the Polish Academy, Makwanya’s father, Kennis, told Post Sport that his son did not undertake his A-Level studies even though he had passed.
“The reason being that I was phoned by Stamina Academy in South Africa after they had seen him on one of my Facebook posts. They invited him for trials and I sent him to South Africa where some Polish scouts also invited him for trials in Poland.
“I did everything for him, including paying for his flight,” said Makwanya, himself a prolific dribbling wizard during his playing days when he used to turn out for Dairi-Steri, Council Stars and GMB in Division One and Two in Chipinge during the 1990s.
Munyaradzi fitted in well in the KSPN Pogon Krakow Academy where he scored crucial goals in the matches he featured, and it appears he is now living his dream.
In an interview three years back when he joined KSPN Pogon Krakow Academy, when asked where he finds himself in five years’ time, young Makwanya said: “That is a hard question to answer, but when God wants it to happen it will definitely happen. These are God’s plans, but by that time I know I will be playing in one of the top leagues in Europe.”
“It is also my ambition to move forward and have a better life so that one day I will be able to travel with my family, grow up in the game and in life, until my family and community back in Chipinge are proud of me. Judging from where I came from, I can see light at the end of the tunnel,” he said.
