The ManicaPost
Moffat Mungazi’s Footy Footnotes
KNOCKED OUT of the Total-sponsored 2019 Africa Cup of Nations tournament, the Warriors must be licking their wounds given the way they went down. While the subject has sharply dived opinion as we introspect, toss the blame and look for scapegoats, it has certainly generated several interesting points to ponder; chief among which is how luckless we were and how we were our own enemies.
But one goal scored against six conceded, giving away goals in every game, is frighteningly chastening and calls for a reality check of brutal candour! Let us digest it . . .
Largely luckless
In this game, some argue that teams and players need slices of luck in the right moments. Yet others are convinced that in football you make you own luck.
But then again the bottom line is that good fortune is a principal factor in this popular sport.
And it looks like Lady Luck frowned upon our senior men’s soccer team during the times they needed her caressing stroke the most and a lot.
The injuries that dogged our camp played a hand in ensuring that we suffered an ill-fated campaign. Midfielder Tafadzwa Kutinyu was forced to sit out the entire finals before even kicking the ball, while other players like Marvellous Nakamba, Khama Billiat, George Chigova, Edmore Sibanda, Devine Lunga, Alec Mudimu and Nyasha Mushekwi all took knocks and had injury concerns hanging over them at one point or the other during the tournament. That is basically half the number of members that form the nucleus of our first team. Not to be taken as an excuse, though, those misfortunes with injuries must have upset our game plan and rhythm in the squad.
And there were those goal-scoring chances that Warriors captain Knowledge Musona could not bury. On another day and with luck on his side, the Zimbabwe Number 17 would certainly bang those in with the famous “no-look” easy of Liverpool and Brazil forward Roberto Firmino.
Then substitute striker Evans Rusike’s effort bouncing off the touchline before Uganda goalkeeper Dennis Onyango scooped it away to safety, with the Zimbabwe player already preparing to wheel away in goal celebrations, is probably the stuff that would have left even Nollywood witchcraft movies directors drooling and keen to borrow the scene for their scripts!
Luck deserted us at crucial moments.
Punished for mistakes
The Warriors were largely to blame for virtually the six goals in their entirety they conceded during the competition. For all the first goals we conceded in each and every of our three matches were of our own making. In the end, it was a fatal downfall of our own doing.
We literally shot ourselves in the foot, rendering us hamstrung and incapable to compete.
Perhaps our final game against Democratic Republic Congo succinctly summed up our wretched outing in Egypt on the whole. Those two calamitous mistakes by short-stopper Elvis Chipezeze and the Warriors switching off at a critical stage during the match to concede the second goal tell the complete story.
Making mistakes gets teams cruelly punished in football (as was the case in the Egypt and DRC games) and it would appear we never learned from our errors throughout our participation at the tournament as we kept conceding in disturbingly similar fashion.
Failing to take chances gets teams dearly paying for it, the Uganda match proved to us.
Fortune favours the brave, it is said, yet our Warriors betrayed their battle-name and were sheepish against the Leopards who then ruthlessly mauled them.
Our boys did not give as much as they took, allowing the Congolese to pull a “Pastor Alph-Lukau-on-Elliot” — perform a “risen-from-the-dead-miracle” — (oh, by the way, the man of cloth happens to be the rhumba boys’ compatriot!) as they overtook us in Group A and qualified for the knockout phase at our own expense!
Also, coach Sunday “Mhofu” Chidzambwa appears to be the fall guy. The veteran gaffer, for all the reverence he gets, somewhat looked out of depth at this level of the game, with some questionable substitutions and tactical ineptitude crudely exposing his technical deficiencies.
The team was largely underwhelming in all areas — without much to show for all their huffing, puffing and sweat – and Mhofu, as the gentle giant of our football, must own up.
Zifa must also share the blameworthiness, with the association being at fault for failing to put their house in order.
For how and why did they handle the players’ welfare issues in the manner they did? We were confirmed qualified for the finals in March, some whole three months before the tournament kicked off, and the authorities running our football knew exactly what was coming and ought to get prepared for. Yet their shortcomings and state of preparedness left a lot to be desired, causing the tiff which saw the team threatening to boycott fulfilling fixtures as government inevitably intervened to save the situation. Perhaps only they can provide answers.
We certainly deserve better and are demanding it from this administration.
Without necessarily nitpicking and witch-hunting, the Warriors’ horrible show at Afcon is just plainly painful to take!
If it is about football that you care, let’s share the cheer because we are made for the game, mad about the game!
Feedback:
The Warriors must have got into the plane to Cairo with all their dues settled. With the way they let the Democratic Republic of Congo score against them I smell Cairogate; the boys let the whole nation down. — Tawanda Mhlanga., Dangamvura.
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