Moffat Mungazi Sports Correspondent
IT is as surprising as it is disheartening what amount of vitriolic scorn is being hurled at Warriors skipper Knowledge Musona for his ostensibly subdued performances following Zimbabwe’s elimination from the ongoing 2019 Africa Cup of Nations finals.
Not only has the skipper misfired, but he has missed gilt-edged chances and also “given away” a goal in our opening two Group A matches against Egypt and Uganda.
And now many a football fan are on his case.
If we had come to pardon our skipper for his culpability for the goal that handed the Warriors the defeat against the Pharaohs, then Musona’s cardinal sin was the three clear-cut chances he fluffed in the ensuing must-win encounter against Uganda, which would have put us in good stead of progressing to the knockout stages before concluding our campaign against Democratic Republic of Congo.
First, when he skied his effort from inside the box after having turned well; then hitting the furniture with an empty goal yawning and begging at his mercy; before, right at the death of the game in optional time, firing off the mark when passing to a better positioned teammate had looked a viable alternative (perhaps the burden of the pressure to deliver and atone for those earlier misses in the match was heavily weighing him down!).
But how did we get here?
Why are we lynching one of our leading lights for supposedly going “missing in action”?
Does the Anderlecht striker suddenly become a bad player because he was off-colour and supposedly underperformed at Afcon? Did his goals not carry us during the qualifiers? This is the guy who top-scored for the team — he netted five of the Warriors’ nine goals, close to a 60 percent ratio, over the period under review. Also, he was the qualifiers’ overall third best marksman during that run. Granted, heroics in the past do not necessarily guarantee similar feats in the future but then should we crucify him now for patchy performances in only three games at the finals when he scored in three of the six qualifiers?
Also, him being the conduit between the players and Zifa in his capacity as the team captain following that standoff between the parties, which threatened to run the whole campaign into ruins, have we paused to ponder how much that might have affected him?
Again, his club career was also blighted by lots of challenges that inflicted uncertainties, and coming into this tournament against that backdrop it may be cumbersome for the talented gunslinger to perform at his optimum level.
Every dog has its day and Musona, who, by our book remains one of the top dogs in the Warriors yard, remains knowledgeable of the game (replay his salacious, well-worked and expertly executed goal — which would have turned even Egyptian football god Mohammed Salah green with envy — against Congo Brazzaville in the final game of our qualifiers for cross reference!) Even Divine Lunga — who was in imperious form with a commanding performance against the Pharaohs in the opener during which he overshadowed and literally put in his back pocket the mega superstar Salah — was sloppy and under par in the second match against Uganda, going by the standards he had set, as his mistake proved costly when the Cranes fashioned their goal from it.
Perhaps some fans are still suffering from the hangover that Musona was “responsible” for Egypt’s goal that sank us owing to his mistake which they capitalised on after he had needlessly lost possession.
But how about, for our captain’s exoneration, that sumptuous chest-controlled pass to Ovidy Karuru which set his vice-captain up for an assist for Khama Billiat’s goal!
Form is temporary and class is permanent, sincere friends of the game of football will agree. And Musona exudes the latter in abundant loads. He can still get this monkey off his back.
We, here at Footy Footnotes, still tip him to come right and deliver something special for the Warriors in their future assignments.
When skipper is down like this the team also loses out on something and we cannot afford to exacerbate it. Also, we need not throw away all the good he has done just because things did not go our and his way.
Chin up, hold your head high and pull your weight, boy!
Warriors are made of sterner stuff, built for combat and battle on against seemingly insurmountable odds heavily staked against them.
We win and lose together as a team and to vilify our captain, lugging him down from hero to zero, on account of our botched Afcon campaign would be criminally unfair.
Spare a though for our skipper.
Knowledge Musona needs a huge hug, and kisses even, so his form and spirits soar again.