THE last time when someone called me a “dimwit” and accused me of “smoking pot” on the feedback column of an international media website was six years ago when an anonymous Kaizer Chiefs’ fan hammered me with a volley of insults for daring to criticise Bobby Motaung.

The Kick-Off website had reproduced an article I penned in April 2010, under the screaming headline “BOBBY MOTAUNG CAN GO TO HELL,” after the Chiefs’ boss lashed out at the CAPS United leadership, describing them as a bunch of shameless cheats, for selling their players to Mamelodi Sundowns despite having discussed a possible deal with the Amakhosi.

Most of the 67 comments provoked by that article were merciless, in their savage criticism of me, a fierce backlash I should probably have expected given the huge fan base that Chiefs command in South Africa and, in matters like these, raging emotion — and partisanship — usually cloud sober judgment.

“This dimwit Rob Sharuko must be smoking pot, if the way he spews forth empty rhetoric in his column is anything to go by,” that person thundered. “No amount of blowing his stinking hot air, until he runs out (I so wish), will change the fact that it’s utterly immoral for other teams to poach players from another team’s camp.

“Only oxygen-thieving morons like him will justify, if not condone, what Sundowns did to Chiefs without a twinge of conscience. Who cares what he thinks anyway? I just hate arrogant gasbags who bite the hand that feeds them, NXA!!!”

To them, Bobby Motaung represented royalty, was beyond criticism, it was something they didn’t see often in their media, and for a Zimbabwean journalist — whom they held in low esteem, because of his nationality, in a country pregnant with morons who think we are inferior human beings — to tell him to go to hell, was taboo.

And they exploded in rage as they hauled all sorts of insults towards me.

But, as my journalism lecturer told me back in the day of my college days, there are no permanent friends, or permanent enemies, in this job.

And, half-a-dozen years down the line, I find myself fighting in Bobby Motaung’s corner after the Chiefs’ boss this week lashed out at domestic rivals who went into overdrive, in the last couple of days, mocking the Amakhosi for allegedly buying cheap players from Zimbabwe to the extent that when they pay for one, they are given another one for free.

This followed Chiefs’ acquisition of Edmore Chirambadare and Mitchell Katsvairo from Chicken Inn as the Amakhosi try to find a way out of the darkness which enveloped their camp last season as they misfired horribly on all fronts and turned into something that was an insult to the legacy of success that this club has built at home.

Although Chirambadare and Katsvairo were part of eight players unveiled by Chiefs last week, including an unheralded Zambian striker who has been playing in the backwaters of Mozambican football where Evans Gwekwerere, who has been rejected by Dynamos after just a few months of a reunion made in hell, was a star, it was the two Zimbabweans who were singled out by these critics with their move to the Amakhosi turned into a subject of intense ridicule.

Chirambadare and Katsvairo ended up paying a price, and becoming a subject of sickening jokes before they have even kicked a ball, simply because of their nationality, hounded by morons who believe we are inferior human beings whose footballers are very cheap to the extent that when you buy one, you get an extra one for free.

But Bobby Motaung, to his eternal credit, hit back at these people with a spirited public defence of his Zimbabwean acquisitions that was passionate, exploding with frankness, educative and a no-holds-barred criticism of those whose blinkers prevent them from seeing anything good that comes from this country.

And, for that, I take my hat off to Bobby.

YES, BOBBY, WE AREN’T AN INFERIOR LOT THIS SIDE OF THE LIMPOPO

“If I go to Zim there is nothing for mahala and the good thing about Zim is that since we have gone there, give me any flop that we have signed from Zim and that has been a flop, flop, flop,” Bobby Motaung thundered this week.

“Obviously, some players don’t make it because of challenges. But every team in Zimbabwe now has offices and we spend millions in Zimbabwe for your own information. In Zimbabwe they now use US Dollars. You can imagine the Dollar to a Rand now.

“Sometimes we don’t disclose figures because both clubs will have agreed for certain reasons not to disclose the price, but we buy. We spend millions, there is nothing for mahala . . . the only player that we sold in South Africa or in Africa of late was Musona.

“When I brought him here they said ‘buy one, get two free’, yet when we sold him to Germany people were angry. LOOK AT THE NATIONAL TEAM OF ZIMBABWE, THEY ARE THE ONLY ONES THAT HAVE QUALIFIED FOR THE AFCON (2017) IN THIS REGION, ALL OF US ARE OUT.”

And prominent Kaizer Chiefs supporter Saddam Maake, who has supported the club for about half a century now, defended his boss.

“I’ve been a Chiefs supporter for 46 years now, I know everything that is happening there. People said the same things about the likes of Musona when we signed them, hey they are not quality, they are not stars, they are from Zimbabwe blah, blah,” he told KickOff.com

“Even our current PSL Footballer of the Season (Khama Billiat), where does he come from? Even him, he was an unknown and not a star when he arrived here.

“We don’t need stars or big-name players, we need players that have hunger to succeed, committed players who will respect the jersey. Others say we don’t sign quality, forgetting that we don’t have quality in South Africa.

“That’s why our national team don’t qualify for anything, because we just don’t have quality strikers here at home.”

SOMEHOW, THEY PRETEND TO FORGET IT’S OUR BOYS ILLUMINATING SUPER DISKI

If our players are that poor that when you buy one, you get an extra one for free, why is it that they are the ones who are illuminating Super Diski?

The best player in the South African Premiership today, by a country mile, is a Zimbabwean forward, Khama Billiat, and he scooped all the big awards, including the KickOff Footballer of the Season voted for by readers of the magazine who might be supporters of Mamelodi Sundowns’ rivals.

They might not have liked the way he destroyed their defences last season, as he became the first player in the history of the South African Premiership to provide 20 assists in one season, but his sheer brilliance dissolved whatever misgivings they had that he didn’t play for their teams and was the destroyer-in-chief.

Willard Katsande, the Warriors’ skipper, scooped the Kaizer Chiefs’ Player of the Season, Players’ Player of the Season, Fans’ Player of the Season, Online Player of the Season, to add to the four times that he won the Player of the Month awards last season.

He scored more goals, as a defensive midfielder, than Togolese striker Camaldine Abraw, who only managed six goals all season, but even though Abraw failed you don’t see them mocking him or any player from his country, and he doesn’t get the kind of abuse and rejection that Kingstone Nkhatha suffered during his time at the Amakhosi where he was doing far better than Abraw.

Katsande’s success wasn’t a fluke because, two years ago, he also scooped all the major awards at Chiefs.

Evans Rusike, playing his first season in Super Diski, was voted the Player of the Season at Maritzburg United where he also won the Golden Boot as his goals, including a double in a winner-take-all eliminator against Jomo Cosmos, saved his team from relegation.

Goal.com have just released their five nominees for the South African Player of the Season and we are the only foreign country with two players on that list, Katsande and Billiat, in another massive vote of confidence in the quality of our footballers.

Our boys have already picked more than 10 awards, including the coveted Footballer of the Season, and pocketed more than a million rand, and more awards are on the way, and some moron still believes they are of an inferior quality that when you buy one you get an extra one for free.

Don’t be bullied Bobby, after all, they said the same when you bought Knowledge Musona before his sheer brilliance made them eat humble pie.

PETER DRURY MAKES YOU FALL IN LOVE WITH FOOTBALL COMMENTARY

As Iceland’s giant-killers added the under-achieving England to their growing list of victims in a UEFA Euro 2016 match now dubbed the greatest shock result in the history of the tournament, the powerful voice of commentator Peter Drury — who in my little book is arguably the finest football commentator in the world — provided a fitting sound to the slaughter of the Three Lions.

I have repeatedly used this space to tell readers how I miss the days when the likes of the late Choga Tichatonga Gavhure, “zvinhu zvaita manyama amire nerongo, mirai tione kuti zvinofamba wani wani, bhora richitorwa na Joel Shambo, The Headmaster, Jubilee, Mwalimu, mazita kuita kupfekerana, richipihwa Shackman Tauro, vamwe vanomuti Bere, vamwe vachiti Chinyaride vechirungu vachiti Mr Goals, vakomana vemaKepekepe vapinda mu danger zone,” made football commentary on radio very enjoyable.

Or Jonathan Mutsinze thundering on the radio, “kunonoka Moooooses, vamwe vanga vatopinda nechekare,” those days when fans would carry their little transmitter radios into Rufaro or Gwanzura and listen to the commentary of a game they were watching.

Listening to Peter Drury, as Iceland blasted England out of the Euros and brought a fitting end to the doomed stewardship of the hopeless Roy Hodgson, was a journey into that past when the likes of Tommy Ballantyne, on television, and Charles Mabika and Evans Mambara on radio, used to make our days through their commentary.

Drury told television viewers the match between England and Iceland was a collision of “national delight and national demand, dominance and expectation, England have the heritage, the glittering Premier League, Iceland have the ambition, this is England’s heaven-sent chance and iceland’s moment in paradise.”

And, when it was all over, after Iceland had won, he told us, “Iceland will dance all the way to Paris for a quarter-final that laughs in the face of logic, a fairy-tale too ludicrous to write, the ultimate underdogs have made a magical mess of the ultimate tournament under-achievers, the best league in the world cannot produce the best national side in the world, a nation struggling with its politics (Brexit) now has a sporting headache.”

Simply brilliant!

TO GOD BE THE GLORY!

Come on Warriors!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Khamaldinhooooooooooooooooo!

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TWENTY years ago Lloyd Chitembwe was part of a group of trailblazing footballers, whose attacking prowess was as devastating as it was breathtaking, as they finally exorcised the ghost that had stalked CAPS United for 16 years in which the Green Machine had failed to win the league championship.

A combative midfielder, in a team packed with stylish forwards with poster-boy looks and the flying dreadlocks of Farai Mbidzo, so good a player they even nicknamed him ‘Mr Perfect’, Chitembwe was, inevitably, pushed into the shadows as others like Alois Bunjira and Stewart Murisa dominated the limelight.

He did a lot of the dirty work, the kind of player whose presence was never celebrated, but whose value would be felt on the occasion he wasn’t in the team, and given that he rarely smiled, it’s possible that he didn’t have as many fans as his dashing teammates who monopolised all the newspaper headlines.

After all, this was a Green Machine that Steve Kwashi had assembled with a bias towards attack, relentless attacking football, which could suffocate opponents by simply outscoring them, something they did with amazing regularity, in a marathon that finally yielded the club’s first league title in independent Zimbabwe.

By winning that league championship, with a three-point advantage over a very strong Dynamos side — a team that hardly gets any credit even though it was one of the strongest the Glamour Boys have assembled and could have won that championship had Mphumelelo Dzowa not scored a late equaliser in the Harare Derby — Chitembwe and his crew danced their way into immortality.

For they had succeeded where Joel “Jubilee” Shambo and his teammates had failed, throughout the ‘80s when CAPS United had some of the best players to emerge on the domestic football scene, with their success being limited to the knockout tournaments, giving them the nickname “Cup Kings”, on a battleground where the Glamour Boys ruled supreme in the ultimate race, the league championship.

Eight years after the heroics of ’96, Chitembwe found himself playing in the CAPS United team, now under the guidance of Charles Mhlauri, which won another league championship in record-breaking fashion, losing only one match in the campaign and finishing unbeaten in their 15 matches away from home.

And when the Green Machine won back-to-back league titles with success in 2005, Chitembwe became the most decorated CAPS United player in the history of this giant of a football club, with more league title winners’ medals than anyone who has ever played for Makepekepe, including legends like Shambo, Stanford “Stix” Mtizwa, Friday “Breakdown” Phiri and Stanley “Sinyo” Ndunduma.

Incredibly, even though he was coming to the twilight end of his successful career, Chitembwe was still such a powerful influence on the field and he even forced his way into the Warriors’ team for the 2006 Nations Cup finals in Egypt.

But, rather than celebrate his career, his critics, who stalked him throughout his time on the pitch and never gave him full value, and respect, for his talent and extraordinary service to the game and CAPS United, chose to concentrate on his tendency to lose his discipline, including a sickening habit of spitting at those who crossed his path, rather than what he had given to our football.

Maybe, given that he had spent his career playing unfashionable, but very crucial roles, in the heart of the midfield, repelling attacks and providing the defensive shield to his backline, Chitembwe was never meant to be the star who would be the superhero.

Maybe that explains why some people, who played for CAPS United for not more than three seasons, won a single championship, are now regarded by fans, and some of our football writers, as immortals at this club, legendary players, feted as men who served it more than Chitembwe.

Even some, who never won a league title at the club, are at times regarded as legends, by some commentators and fans, while Chitembwe is treated as if he doesn’t deserve to be honoured even though his record of three league titles — which might never be matched at a club that wins, on average, one league title every nine years — should have seen him getting a statute outside their home ground if CAPS United had their own stadium.

AND, CAN YOU BELIEVE IT, HE EVEN GETS HECKLED FOR BEING IN THIRD PLACE?

After a dozen games in the championship race, CAPS United are in their strongest position for years, sitting in third place and just a point adrift of leaders Highlanders and, with 54 points still to play for, enough to win the championship race, in the marathon.

The Green Machine, under Chitembwe’s guidance, have lost just one league game this season, ended a seven-year wait to beat their biggest rivals Dynamos, in a league match, ended their poor run against Harare City and Chapungu and go into today’s top-of-the-table showdown against FC Platinum knowing that victory could see them go back to the top.

But, somehow, even though they have been one of the best three teams, after a dozen games, in the championship race, Chitembwe found himself being heckled by some of his fans at Rufaro on Sunday after the Green Machine conceded a late equaliser, and wasted a glut of chances, to settle for a 1-1 draw against Hwange.

Yes, admittedly, the fact that CAPS United blew a glorious chance to go back to the top of the table hurt some of their fans, but isn’t it a fact that there are no prizes for being at the top, after a dozen games, in this marathon and what matters is fighting to be at the top after 30 games?

Have we ever crowned the “DOZEN-GAMES CHAMPIONS” in this country?

If Chitembwe’s tactics, or substitutions, had aided Hwange to get that goal then one can understand, but everyone who watched that game, and can analyse it with an open mind and not one poisoned by his or her hatred of the coach, can see that the Green Machine should have ended it as a contest long before the coalminers got their goal.

Dominic Chungwa had chances that he couldn’t convert, Simba Nhivi, too, and Leonard Tsipa, the ageless forward who has been popping up with key goals, was unavailable while another forward who has been scoring regularly, Brian Abbas Amidu, was in Germany for trials.

Yes, his men fluffed chances on Sunday, as they have often done in this campaign, but Chitembwe can stand in their defence saying they have the second highest number of goals in this championship campaign and while his defence, now and again, appears to go to sleep late in the second half, it’s also a fact that it’s the third best defensive unit, at the moment, in the race.

Why is it that the same fans who didn’t heckle Mark Harrison last year, when Hwange came to Harare and left with a point after a goalless draw against CAPS United, now explode with volcanic fury, directing all their anger at Chitembwe, simply because the coalminers — whose last away game before their trip to the capital was a victory in the Lowveld — came here and held out for another draw?

It’s easy to be seduced by the nonsense that Chitembwe is a poor coach, that CAPS United is a very big team for his shoes, but what did those good coaches do, in the past 11 years, when this club has been battling in vain to try and win the league championship?

The facts, stubborn as they are, will tell us that CAPS United are not regular winners of the league championship and Shambo and his men, who were far better players than those who are wearing the green-and-white jerseys today, failed to win it throughout the ‘80s.

Four league titles in 37 years doesn’t paint a picture of a team that regularly wins the league championship and that needs to be taken into context before some people, who just hate Chitembwe simply because they never embraced him as a coach, are allowed to convert their hatred into substance.

Yes, Chitembwe isn’t perfect, but tell me a coach who is perfect and I will donate all my savings to charity.

Jose Mourinho went from being a champion to being sacked in just five months while Claudio Ranieri won his first title with underdogs Leicester City, at the ripe age of 64, after spending 30 years in the job managing teams without success.

Since Chitembwe’s return to CAPS United, the Green Machine have played 21 league games, they have won 11, drawn eight and lost only TWO, yes, just TWO matches, scored 32 goals, conceded just 16 and their 41 points represent a 65.08 percent success rate.

They are unbeaten at home in that time, winning seven of the 12 matches they have played in their backyard, with the other five ending in draws, while in the nine matches they have played away from home, they have won four, drawn three and lost two.

That is as impressive a record as any coach can be proud of.

Questions remain over Jorum Muchambo in goals, and he appears to make costly mistakes now and again, but to suggest that he was to blame for the Hwange goal will not be fair to him and, after all, a coach has the right to invest his confidence in his ‘keeper.

Muchambo is not Tatenda Mukuruva, the best ‘keeper in this country by a distance, but he is also not as bad as some people say he is.

CAPS United need to borrow a leaf from Dynamos, who seem to find unity when the going gets tough, which then helps them turn the corner rather than have these rebellious constituents who are always waiting for that rainy day, for that one bad result, for them to pour their venom on the coach.

RULE OUT THIS DEMBARE TEAM FROM THE CHAMPIONSHIP RACE AT YOUR PERIL

It’s a boring, if not lifeless, championship race when Dynamos are struggling — the fans stay away from the stadiums, newspaper sales plunge, even their rivals miss singing those songs with lyrics insulting the Glamour Boys as a spent force.

But, after Kenny Mubaiwa finally lost patience with that Portuguese clown called Silva and returned this giant club to the hands of its former sons, who have always done well when they are in charge, we have seen a remarkable comeback from these Glamour Boys.

They might not be playing the best football right now, but they have found a way to refuse to be bullied and, their defence, which has always been the foundation on which they build their success stories, has found a way not to concede goals again.

And, as if on cue, Denver Mukamba returns to provide the X-Factor and, if you thought this was a team for relegation, then you probably need to have your mind examined.

They are back in the championship race and, when the Glamour Boys are in it, it’s quite an interesting one especially in the year when Bosso are leading and CAPS United are in the picture.

A BUNCH OF RACIST DANISH MORONS WHO HAVE NO PLACE IN TODAY’S SOCIETY

The far-right Danes Party of Denmark posted a Facebook post suggesting that the French national team should be thrown out of Euro 2016 because most of their players are black and have African heritage.

The post said the French side’s win over Iceland should be nullified because France should be playing at the AFCON finals and not the Euros given that most of their players were black and Africans.

The good thing, though, is that the Icelandic football federation slammed that post and dissociated themselves from it.

Some people just want to play party spoilers because Iceland, a nation without any army, no mosquitoes, no railways, where crime level is virtually zero and where alcohol was banned from 1915 until 1989, with just about 330 000 people, were the team of Euro 2016.

TO GOD BE THE GLORY!

Come on Warriors!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Khamaldinhooooooooooooooooooo!

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Robson Sharuko
SHE was just three when I first took her to Rufaro and only five when she told me she had made a choice, in terms of the local football club she loved, the latest recruit of the millions of Zimbabwean who have been seduced by the mystic appeal of Dynamos since 1963.

Maybe, it was a beautiful romance that was meant to be, from day one of her life, given she arrived in this world in a landmark year for the Glamour Boys which would see them — just nine months after her birth — celebrate a 15th league title in their illustrious history.

Being the lonely, and lovely dove, in a house full of Red Devils, supporters of that Old Trafford football franchise, it was only fitting that she also fell in love with a Chelsea team whose sky blue colours, from down here, appear to represent the paradise of the golden kingdom of heaven where angels reside.

Football mattered to her, as much as music and, as fate would have it, the first year I took her to Rufaro, was the season her beloved Glamour Boys soared highest in their history, coming within just 90 minutes of being crowned champions of Africa.

And, seven years later, she was part of the generation which finally celebrated Chelsea’s first league title in 50 years, as world football embraced the genius of a Portuguese coach who would transform himself into ‘The Special One,’ with the Blues’ landmark triumph coming in the year the London club celebrated 100 years of their existence.

She had turned 10, back then, and I remember seeing her beaming with pride as Chelsea became champions, providing her with the chance to finally celebrate her team’s success story, having grown up in a house where the bragging of her Red Devils’ family members — whose Manchester United had won six titles since her arrival in this world — had been a pain in the soul.

Of course, she was unaware that her Chelsea had smashed records, along the way, conceding the fewest number of goals in an English Premiership season (15); powering themselves to the highest points tally in a season (95); knitting together the most consecutive away wins in a season (nine) and capping it all with the most clean sheets in a season (25).

But that didn’t matter, in her hour of triumph, when her Blues had finally beaten “daddy’s team led by that grumpy old man (Sir Alex Ferguson) who has been around as long as I can remember it’s as if he owns the club,” and in Didier Drogba she had a footballer she could now call “my favourite player”, his smile, and goals, lighting up her little world.

To me she was just my girl, my Mimi, my Mimizeni (God knows whatever that means, but that was what I called her and that’s what she will forever be called), the ultimate gift God gave me 21 years ago, presented to me in a special year for football in Southern African when a club from this region finally conquered African football.

South African football powerhouse Orlando Pirates, formed in the year her grandfather, my late father, was born in 1937, were crowned champions of Africa in 1995, the year my Mimi was born, although I always told her that her beloved Dynamos should have been the Kings that year.

That is, if her Glamour Boys had not self-destructed, a fatal technical decision plucked from hell, to keep Moses Chunga on the bench in the second leg of their quarter-final tie against Express of Uganda at the National Sports Stadium, backfiring horribly and ending the adventure of men who had the pedigree of being champions of this continent.

Dynamos president Kenny Mubaiwa came home on Sunday morning to pay his respects to a devoted fan of his club he never met, but whose enduring love for the Glamour Boys was known by us who had walked with her every step of her two decades on this earth when all we needed was her smashing smile to provide light on the days when gloom paid us a visit.

Somehow Mimi, my Sophia, passed away at exactly 3pm on that Black Friday, two weeks ago, quietly departing the garden of the living at exactly the same time that is the traditional kick-off time for a game, in this country, which has become a part of her family’s name.

Somehow, my girl had to die at 21 and, given her love for her Dynamos, I could not help, but find it ironic that it was on the occasion of her beloved club’s 21st birthday anniversary, in 1984, when her Glamour Boys, for the first time in Independent Zimbabwe, were dethroned from their throne as domestic football champions after having ruled the roost for four straight years since 1980.

My Mimi has been gone for 15 days now, but — as those who have lost their kids in the prime of their lives, from music superstar Oliver Mtukudzi whose handsome Sam, also only 21 when he died, and Professor Jonathan Moyo whose angel Zanele was only 20 when she died, will tell you — there is nothing as terrible as this.

“Robson, I’m gutted to hear about the loss of your daughter. I know how dark and painful such a loss is,” Professor Moyo said in a message. “My family and I have you and your wife in our prayers. Only God knows why. Do all you can to be strong.”

People have been telling me that she was beautiful, as if it would have mattered had she been ugly, they have been telling me she was full of life, as if it would have mattered if she been a reclusive girl, they have been saying she had grown to become a charming young woman, as if it would have mattered had she not been elegant, as they say, or cute, as they tell me.

To me, she was just my girl, my golden gift from the Lord, the one I would never leave to walk alone and, for two decades, we walked together, our bond growing stronger with each passing day, week, month and year, more than being a daughter she was something special, a part of me always carried her wherever I went and a part of me always stayed with her wherever she was.

Today I’m grieving, not only as a father who lost his angel, but as a man who lost his best friend, haunted by a flood of questions that I will never find an answer to, asking every minute why this had to happen to my sweetheart, of all people, and still getting no answers, wondering why I have been provided with the gift of having to live this long and why my girl never got such a privilege.

A FATHER WHO HAS MADE

A CAREER WRITING OBITUARIES FOR OTHERS

In October 2002, I wrote an obituary for former Zimbabwe international midfielder David Mwanza in this newspaper, writing from a position of considerable authority given that the man they called Chikwama was someone I had known since I was a boy in Chakari, before his rise to become a superstar, a shining beacon who inspired us to also pursue our dreams and find a way out of those goldfields.

Since then, I guess, I have penned a dozen other obituaries for our departed football heroes.

I have also read a number of obituaries, including one by an American lawyer called Amanda Lewis of Dallas, which she penned for her father, Harry Weathersby Stamps, which catapulted a man who, in his life was just a teacher known only to his little closely-knit Mississippi community, into someone who — after his death at the age of 80 — became popular around the world after his daughter’s moving piece was published in The Herald Sun and went viral online.

“Harry Weathersby Stamps, ladies’ man, foodie, natty dresser, and accomplished traveller, died on Saturday, March 9, 2013,” she wrote about her father.

“The women in his life were numerous. He particularly fancied smart women. He married his main squeeze Ann Moore, a home economics teacher, almost 50 years ago, with whom they had two girls Amanda Lewis of Dallas (the writer of the obituary), and Alison of Starkville.

“One of his regrets was not seeing his girl, Hillary Clinton, elected President.

“He particularly hated Day Light Saving Time, which he referred to as The Devil’s Time. It is not lost on his family that he died the very day that he would have had to spring his clock forward. This can only be viewed as his final protest.”

I never imagined, for a moment, that one day, I would sit down and read an obituary for my daughter, as written expertly by my colleague Gilbert Munetsi in this newspaper last week, and I would also sit down and write about her in the past tense.

But, sadly, that’s what fate has cruelly decided and, in the madness that has been my life in the past two weeks, searching for answers that will never come, suffering from excruciating pain that will never heal, staggering in the darkness that will never pass, I have found myself turning to reading a number of obituaries.

I have since found out that Irish singer and songwriter, Bob Geldof, actually contemplated suicide after the tragic death of his daughter, Peaches, two years ago, at the young age of 25.

And, when you consider that this is the same man who, in the face of the catastrophe of the devastating Ethiopian famine of the early ‘80s, which estimates claim killed more than 500 000 people after drought ravaged the northern parts of the country, found the strength to organise the Band Aid initiative whose song, “Do They Know It’s Christmas” grossed more than US$30 million around the world to help the people of Ethiopia, then you know how unbearable losing a young daughter is.

“This thing of being forever 25, in my head, that’s unbearable, simply because of that cliché — YOU’RE NOT SUPPOSED TO SEE YOUR CHILDREN DIE,” Geldof told The Daily Mail this year.

“But she is the one who is with me every second of the day and she is the one who bangs my conscience at any moment, especially in any down moment, where I’m not doing something. She is very present. Times does not heal, it accommodates. But it is not accommodating this.”

Yes, Bob, those who tell us that time is a healer haven’t been hammered with the kind of devastating blow that we have suffered.

YES, MIMZ, MY SWEETHEART, MY HEART WILL GO ON

My girl was just two when Celine Dion released her blockbuster hit song, “My Heart Will Go On”, in 1997, a year before I took her on her first visit to Rufaro, and given that she also loved music and movies, with Titanic among her all-time favourites, maybe, it’s probably fitting that the parting shots, this week, should be about the lyrics of that super song.

Every word seemingly written for my tragedy, for my daughter, for my Mimz.

Yes, Mimz, no matter where you are now, a quarter mile away or halfway around the world, you’ll always be with me, with us, with your mum, who is suffering badly right now as she counts her big loss, your brother Kalusha who can’t believe it and your uncle Simba who can’t stop crying.

“Every night in my dreams

I see you, I feel you,

That is how I know you go on

Far across the distance

And spaces between us

You have come to show you go on

Near, far, wherever you are

I believe that the heart does go on

Once more you open the door

And you’re here in my heart

And my heart will go on and on

Love can touch us one time

And last for a life-time

And never let go ‘til we’re gone

Love was when I loved you

One true time I hold to

In my life we’ll always go on

Near, far, wherever you are

I believe that the heart does go on

Once more you open the door

And you’re here in my heart

And my heart will go on and on

You’re here, there’s nothing I fear,

And I know that my heart will go on

We’ll stay forever this way

You are safe in my heart

And my heart will go on and on in the days of gloom.”

TO GOD BE THE GLORY!

Come on Warriors!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Khamaldinhooooooooooooooooooo!

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• Chat with me on Facebook, follow me on Twitter @Chakariboy, interact with me on Viber or read my material in The Southern Times and on the refreshing new sports website www.sportszone.co.zw or the authoritative ZBC weekly television football magazine programme, Game Plan, which is back on air every Monday at 9.30 pm.

Sharuko on Saturday 

WHEN iconic swimmer Kirsty Coventry praised the Mighty Warriors this week, despite the six-goal hammering they suffered at the hands of global women football powerhouse Germany in Sao Paulo on Wednesday night, she probably didn’t anticipate it was going to provoke a fierce social media firestorm.But that’s what it did.

Her Facebook post, in which she said “Our Mighty Warriors did well against such a strong side, they may have lost 6-1 to Germany but they won my heart,” had been shared 252 times, as at 7pm last night, and attracted 302 comments.

Coventry isn’t an ordinary athlete, she is a superstar swimmer, Africa’s greatest Olympian of all-time, has won more medals than any other athlete from this continent on the grand stage of the Olympics in the history of the Games, and when she speaks about excellence in sport, she does so with the authority of someone who has been there and done it.

But her lofty status as our country’s most decorated athlete, and Africa’s finest Olympian of all-time, was certainly not taken into consideration in the stormy debate provoked by her comments praising the Mighty Warriors with a sizeable number of people, who commented, being very critical of her decision to praise a team that had just been hammered for six.

Of course, we live in deeply polarised times when some of us — for one reason or another — don’t want to see, let alone hear, a success story coming out of this country, preferring bleakness to greatness, and anything that cheers the spirits of the nation, like Khama Billiat weaving his magic to take us to the Nations Cup finals for the first time in 10 years, is frowned upon.

There was a barrage of criticism from those who questioned how some people, including Coventry, could see a rainbow of light in the gloom of that darkness of that six-goal mauling with some even saying those who had picked some positives from that humiliation had certainly lost their minds.

Refreshingly, others viewed the events from Sao Paulo in a different light.

“I’m horrified at some of the comments. Germany’s women’s soccer team is ranked 2nd in the world, Zim’s women’s soccer team is ranked 93rd in the world,” argued Nyariyoyo Mupfuti-Mvududu in a comment in that Facebook debate.

“So, our girls really fought! They played so well against Germany who are literally Olympic veterans. Our girls even managed to score. I’m so disheartened at some of the comments. Our girls are not ‘rubbish’! Honestly, who says that about their own? The fact that they qualified to go to the Olympics is an achievement in itself.”

Of course, we can’t mask the fact that we were hammered, in a very big way, and any team that concedes six goals, in a football match, would have been massacred, there are no two ways about that.

If a black man like Jesse Owens could walk into the cauldron of Hitler’s racist stronghold of Berlin in 1936 and scupper the German madman’s belief that the whites were a superior race who would always triumph when pitted against their black colleagues, including in sports contests, by winning four gold medals at the 1936 Olympics, why then should we expect the Mighty Warriors — 80 years down the line — to do less and even celebrate their heavy defeat?

If Cameroon could go to the World Cup in 1990 and fight their way to the quarter-finals, beating the defending champions Argentina — who had the great Diego Maradona in their ranks — in their first match in Italy, why then should we expect any less from our Mighty Warriors to an extent that we even celebrate wildly when they are hammered by six goals?

If Senegal, playing in their first World Cup in 2002, could find the courage, and style, to beat the then World Champions France, who had also conquered Europe in 2000 and had in their ranks a number of superstars, in the first game of the tournament in South Korea and Japan, why then should we expect any less from our Mighty Warriors to an extent that we even find comfort, and inspiration, in their hammering at the hands of the Germans on Wednesday?

If Iceland, a country of just about 330 000 could scale the heights they touched at Euro 2016, including eliminating England from the tournament, why then should we expect something less from our Mighty Warriors to the extent of finding a romantic angle to their six-goal pummeling at the hands of the Germans this week?

BUT WAS IT ALL DOOM AND GLOOM FOR OUR SUPERWOMEN?

But, maybe, there are some extenuating circumstances here and that is why those who feel it’s not fair to describe the Mighty Warriors as “a collection of rubbish,” in the wake of their defeat, especially after their sensational collapse in the second half, like our Golden Girl Kirsty Coventry, appear to have a valid point.

Instead of dismissing them as hopeless individuals, who want to celebrate mediocrity, who want to suggest we are such an inferior people who can even stage a national party for leaking six goals in a match against Germany, at an average of a goal every 15 minutes of that match, who want to paint this picture of us being such a hopeless people who find nothing wrong in their national team suffering a six-goal hammering, we need to listen to their arguments.

After all, why do we need a renowned German TV and radio commentator, Bernd Schmelzer, to tell us that the Mighty Warriors surprised him, and most of the world, with their committed show on Wednesday?

“It was spectacular I think for the whole of Zimbabwe, for the team, for all the players, for all the fans. I think a great show,” he told Zimpapers’ Spencer Banda, who is in Brazil covering the Games.

“They need to improve, I think, in playing forward. They have to improve with the goalkeeper, this is a very special thing you know, you saw her, (Lindiwe) Magwede you saw her I think two or three times looking not so good at 3-1. But she had three or four attempts which have been as good as it could be.”

But, for players whose league back home has been dormant, the high-profile victim of that bitter power battle between the game’s leaders, Miriam Sibanda and company, and former ZIFA chief executive Jonathan Mashingaidze, isn’t the fact that they qualified for the Olympics, knocking Cameroon along the way, itself a miracle that should be celebrated and everything else, including the results in Brazil, should be treated as a bonus, if we do well, we thank the Lord, and if we don’t then we say tough luck?

How do we expect players, who only meet for national team assignments, which means they only play about four or five games a year, have the fluency to express themselves as freely as their critics are demanding and to play with the same energy levels, and tactical expression, as rivals who play professional football in Europe and have won every European title in the past six tournaments and have won the World Cup twice in recent times?

How do we suddenly expect players that we all neglected, when they were crying out for a helping hand, with only Prophet Magaya coming to their rescue now and again, including ensuring that their trip to Zambia for an Olympic Games qualifier was not abandoned, when they were being fed on a portion of sadza and boiled muboora and matemba for lunch, to suddenly become world-beaters who can slug it out with a powerhouse like Germany?

How do we expect our coach, whose full-time job is to teach students at his Bulawayo school and only handles the Mighty Warriors on an ad-hoc basis, when they have an assignment, to compete toe-to-toe against professional coaches who do nothing in their life but work on improving their teams, studying their opponents and are veterans of battles on such a grand stage?

How do we expect players whose game was only revived six years ago, when Mavis Gumbo took over as the women football boss, to suddenly turn themselves into a side that should be competing toe-to-toe against sides like the Germans who have been having flourishing and competitive leagues for years?

How do we expect a group of amateurs, playing their first match at such a grand stage, to compete against the ultimate professionals who are used to not only playing at such stages but also winning such big tournaments, including the World Cup, which the Germans have won twice, in recent years, and the European Championships, which they have dominated for years?

When Klaus Dieter-Pagels organised a training camp for our Mighty Warriors in Germany, they played clubs in that country, and were beaten by those clubs and if that provides a statement of the difference, in terms of class, between them and us, why then did we suddenly start to demand that they should compete favourably against the national team and a six-goal defeat, including three goals that came late in the game when our women had run of steam, represents a disaster of national proportions?

What I have seemingly picked out is that people who have not followed the Mighty Warriors Miracle, who suddenly united with the team when they saw them playing on television on Wednesday, are the ones who have been fiercely critical of what they saw in that game and who have been describing the team as a ‘collection of rubbish.”

Those who have been walking with the Mighty Warriors, who know their trials and tribulations, appear to appreciate that, while our footballers would have limited the damage given that three of the goals were from set-pieces, and a fourth was from a penalty that shouldn’t have been given, appreciate that our team gave it all they had.

THE IRONY OF CONDEMNING THE MIGHTY WARRIORS AND HAILING THE DREAM TEAM

If the Mighty Warriors were an embarrassment on Wednesday, as some of us would like this nation to believe, then why do we hold the Dream Team in high esteem when the Indomitable Lions who eliminated them at the final hurdle of the 1994 World Cup qualifiers suffered a six goal mauling in the United States at the hands of Russia?

A team that eliminated us, thanks to that 3-1 defeat in Yaounde in the final match, proved to be horribly out of place in the United States, being hammered 1-6 by Russia in a group game, as they finished bottom of their group and were sent packing after just the group games?

At least, the Mighty Warriors cleared that final hurdle, they eliminated Cameroon in the final qualifier, and — given all the challenges that they have faced, including failing to travel to Cote d’Ivoire because the previous ZIFA Board did not have money to bankroll their trip for an Olympic Games qualifier — I believe that we need to celebrate the very fact that they are battling against the very best in Brazil.

There are only 12 teams in Brazil and we are one of them and that should be a source of national pride, especially for a game that has no sponsor on the domestic scene, and while we all want them to win, we should be realistic that they are up against it at the Olympics given the quality of the opposition.

There are only two African teams in Brazil, and we are one of them, and that should be a source of national pride, especially for a group of players who were never given a chance of travelling this far in this adventure and whose story appeared to be appreciated by the locals who cheered every touch for our women.

Even FIFA described the Mighty Warriors’ performance on Wednesday as “resilient” and that speaks volumes and, of course, we could have done better, played better, marked better, but that doesn’t mean that we should condemn our team but celebrate its achievements of getting to Rio because that is massive.

FROM A DISAPPOINTED

DEMBARE FAN

Obert Masvotore, a colleague of mine, is a big Dynamos fan and, as his team fires blanks in the championship race, he is clearly a troubled soul right now.

Yesterday, he sent me this message which I found to be quite hilarious.

“Dynamos yazondikona ini . . . Wakamboonepi team ine line up yevanhu vanotanga na ‘M’ chete —Mukuruva, Mushure, Murwira, Mwerahari, Mukandi, Mambare, Muzokomba, Mukamba, Mutuma. Apa technical team — Murape Murape, Muzadzi, Mutasa. Leadership — Mubaiwa, aaaah hapana bhora rakadai. Apa ndeve muMbare, Matapi, Matererini Flats, Mupedzanhamo, Magaba ummmm hazvisi zvega izvi. Rega tiite madraw.”

TO GOD BE THE GLORY!

Come on Warriors!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Khamaldinhooooooooooooooooooo!

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TWO years ago, the executive chairman of the English Premiership, Richard Scudamore, issued a chilling warning that Manchester United’s struggles on the pitch had the potential of seriously damaging the global appeal of the world’s most popular top-flight football league. Since arriving as the English Premiership chief executive, in November 1999, Scudamore has overseen its transformation into a money-making monster, which dwarfs all the major top-flight leagues in the world, with the new television rights deal set to rake in more than £13 billion from around the world.

There is more money, now, in the English Premiership than the UEFA Champions League.

Given his phenomenal success story, in the corridors of corporate football, it’s inevitable that when Scudamore talks, the entire global football family not only listens, but does so attentively.

And his decision, to go public back then and warn that Manchester United’s on-the-field troubles could impact negatively on the worldwide appeal, with the financial implications that come with that, on the English Premiership was not only a brave one, given the wrong signals it could send among the Red Devils’ rivals, but a significant — if not highly controversial — one.

“There’s lots of fans around the world who wish Manchester United were winning it (the league title) again,” Scudamore told Bloomberg during a promotional tour of South Africa in March 2014.

“But you have to balance that off against putting on a competition. It’s a double-edged sword. WHEN YOUR MOST POPULAR CLUB ISN’T DOING AS WELL, THAT COSTS YOU INTEREST AND AUDIENCES IN SOME PLACES.”

Of course, Manchester United are not only English football’s biggest club, they are one of the world’s greatest sporting franchises, but it was inevitable that Scudamore’s comments, in which he appeared to regret the Red Devils’ spectacular fall from grace, would provoke a storm of controversy among the major rivals of that Old Trafford club.

After, all, as the league’s boss, he is expected to play for all the clubs in the league, sing for all the clubs in the league, love all the clubs in the league rather than creating an Animal Farm scenario where all the clubs in the English Premiership where equal, but some clubs were more equal than others.

Critics slaughtered Scudamore, pointing to the fact that the English Premiership has transformed itself into a global box-office attraction on the basis of its competitiveness, where any club can beat any side, where results aren’t as predictable as those in La Liga or the Bundesliga and where a small club like Leicester City can write a fairytale by becoming champions.

There was fury, among the Liverpool fans, who are United’s biggest rivals and derive a lot of joy in the Red Devils’ misfortunes, and social media exploded with group debates, featuring the Merseyside giants’ supporters.

One contributor said, “all I can assume from these comments is he (Scudamore) is pro-Man U and maybe thinks they should be given special status — auto Champs League qualification, added time at end of match to be discussed by referee Howard Webb and Webb to handle all the games at Old Trafford.”

Another contributor, Johnny Zidane, said he thought “United had been given special status, all these years, with all the dodgy decisions and the number of people high up in the FA with Man U backgrounds,”while another one called Scudamore’s statement “absolute rubbish, four teams in with a shout of the title and all they do is cry because their beloved Man Utd are nowhere to be seen.”

Another fan said he “wouldn’t be surprised if the FA helps, in a certain way, to influence a certain big name player to join Man Utd,” while another said he wasn’t surprised because “Manure (the name they use to mock Man U) have got their finger in every pie throughout football, maybe he should just start a League that consists of just Man United and Man United reserves.”

ARE DEMBARE’S WOES TOXIC TO THE DOMESTIC PREMIERSHIP?

Dynamos, just like Manchester United in England, are the dominant bull in the domestic Premiership kraal, with the Glamour Boys being crowned champions a record 21 times while the Red Devils have been champions 20 times.

Even though DeMbare have struggled to make an impression in the championship race this year, falling 11 points behind leaders FC Platinum, they were still named the 13th best club in Africa this week by Football Data Base who ranked high-flying South African champions, Mamelodi Sundowns, as the top club on the continent followed closely by the likes of Esperance, Etoile du Sahel, TP Mazembe and Vita Club.

For the first time, in a decade, the Glamour Boys lost a league match to big rivals Highlanders and, for the first time in seven years, Dynamos also fell, in a league contest, to their biggest city rivals CAPS United and that both defeats were inflicted at Rufaro, before their fans who had been fed on a regular diet of dishes that had a taste of superiority, compounded the pain of the defeats.

Their leading goal-scorer, a midfielder trying to banish the demons of the injuries which have stalked his return to the capital after a very successful spell in the City of Kings, where he made such a big impression he was labelled a later-day Judas Iscariot, complete with a front page story in the Chronicle, for choosing to leave Bosso and join DeMbare, has only scored FOUR goals, including two in the last two games.

The self-proclaimed Prince, weighed down by a baggage of failure that doesn’t match his showmanship — which his critics say he mistakes for his confidence — and haunted by a destructive obsession of wanting to always be the main man even when his goal return is the stuff of Mickey Mouse characters not Glamour Boys’ legends, has only TWO goals all season.

Nineteen games into the season, he has scored as many goals as Coutinho scored, in just more than an hour, in one game at the Emirates last weekend, but while the Brazilian rising star, whom his Liverpool skipper says can become the next superstar in world football, is content to remain in the shadows, learning as much as he can, our Prince believes he is already a football god.

At least, to his credit, Masimba Mambare carries himself in a very professional manner, is a very likeable character, works very hard for his team even when he is not getting support from his teammates in the forward line, and — given what he has suffered, in terms of the cruelty of the injuries which have stalked him — just the mere fact that he is playing again, on a regular basis, should be celebrated and, hopefully, he can only get better and better as his confidence soars.

Now, as DeMbare continue to struggle this season, facing the possibility of finishing outside the top two in the championship race for the first time in NINE years, without a win in their last SIX games, and with only two goals to show for their last HALF-A-DOZEN games, can we say that the Glamour Boys’ struggles is toxic to the domestic Premiership?

While we all cry out for a competitive Premiership, dream of a fairy-tale like the one written by the Foxes of Leicester where a club like Border Strikers can win the league championship, we cannot run away from the reality that, in our unique case, clubs like Dynamos, Highlanders and CAPS United have to be competitive, year-in-and-year-out, for the league to be attractive, for it to appeal to a bigger fan base.

DeMbare, as much as this might hurt fans of their rivals, are the big boys when it comes to football in this country and when they sneeze, as if the case right now, the entire domestic Premiership catches a cold and it’s not a coincidence that the biggest matches in this country have a common denominator of the Glamour Boys.

The biggest game in Bulawayo, every year, is the Battle of Zimbabwe showdown between Highlanders and Dynamos and the biggest game in the capital, every year, is the Harare Derby between Dynamos and CAPS United.

The biggest crowd at Sakubva this year was when these Glamour Boys, even under the guidance of a Portuguese clown-disguised-as-a-coach, came to town and that pattern will play out in every other centre although, as DeMbare’s challenge falters and some of their fans begin to lose interest, those clubs who are going to host them towards the end of the season will not get as many fans as those who hosted them in the first half of the season.

Still, when compared to other games, it’s very likely that those numbers will be the highest to watch a game in those areas.

And it’s not just about the crowds that come to watch our domestic Premiership which are, in some way, influenced by the mood of the Glamour Boys, it’s the corporate appeal of the Premier League, its ability to sell itself to sponsors who also want guarantees that there is a sizeable crowd that will follow their investment, which also need a competitive Dynamos.

The newspaper owners also need a competitive Dynamos because when the Glamour Boys are doing well there is a big appetite for news about what is happening in their camp and, when they are not doing well — as is the case now — newspaper sales suffer a knock because some of the club’s fans, simply lose interest.

Yes, we don’t want a domestic Premiership that will always be won by Dynamos, it becomes boring, but we will be lying to ourselves if we say that the Glamour Boys, just like Manchester United in England, don’t have a bearing in the appeal of our domestic Premiership and, at least, they should be competitive.

It’s also true that, without a competitive Highlanders and a competitive CAPS United, our league will be poorer, will lose some of its magical elements, and that the two giants have not won a league title, in 10 years, has taken some gloss of the championship battle.

Like Scudamore, I know I will attract a lot of criticism, but that comes with the terrain and Kenny Ndebele, a former Highlanders boss, can also tell you that his league — where he is the chief executive — badly need a competitive Dynamos, not the sickling we have seen in recent weeks, a competitive CAPS United, not the caricature we had seen in recent years before this season, and a competitive Highlanders, not the one that has been losing its way in recent weeks.

Reports of the DeMbare camp being poisoned by a booze culture, are a throwback to the ‘80s when Sir Alex Ferguson walked into the Manchester United dressing room to find players who couldn’t wait to get their hands on beer, irrespective of the results, are just an insult to the domestic Premiership and all the people who are working very hard to keep it afloat, with a sponsor or two, in these tough economic times.

TOO BAD, GAZZA HAS WALKED AWAY FROM THE BOARDROOM

Alois Bunjira has an army of admirers, and a battalion of critics, which isn’t surprising given that he is quite a fiery character who believes in saying things the way he sees them and feels that he should always provide a voice to try and help our game take a step forward even when his opinion might upset some people.

I like Alois, not because he is from a neighbourhood that became my second home, but because I always felt he was a very good footballer and I felt for him, in 1995, when he lost the Soccer Star of the Year to his colleague, Stewart Murisa, by just a single vote.

The fact that he is trying to develop the next generation of footballers, through his academy, shows that he really has a long-term commitment to Zimbabwe football and if he is not going to be one of the future leaders, then I can bet you that he is going to be one of the future successful coaches.

During the time he worked on the CAPS United board, he always tried to bring a professional touch, shifting post-match interviews away from the football field to a press conference room, working tirelessly to connect the club and the mainstream media and always trying to bring something fresh.

It’s too bad he has decided to walk away from the boardroom but, refreshingly, Gazza is still around to help our football and that should be appreciated.

TO GOD BE THE GLORY!

Come on Warriors!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Khamaldinhoooooooooooooooooo!

Text Feedback – 0772545199

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Chat with me on Facebook, follow me on Twitter @Chakariboy, interact with me on Viber or read my material in The Southern Times and on www.sportszone.co.zw. The authoritative ZBC weekly television football magazine programme, Game Plan, is back and follow our discussions on Monday evening

HE saved the best for last and, for some of us who had the privilege to watch it live, it was worth the one hour and 17 minutes we had waited on Wednesday night for our football star to produce his piece of magic. When the ball was moved into his path, he was occupying the tip of the Orlando Pirates’ diamond, with his back towards goal, and a deft touch with his left foot swept the ball into the opposition area, at the same time sending confusion among the defenders as a highway of opportunities opened up in front of him.

A touch moved the ball exactly where he wanted and, with his confidence levels having been boosted by two earlier goals, including a downward header that was a throwback to the days when old-fashioned number nines like Gift “Ghetto” Mpariwa and Charles “Chola” Chirwa roamed our football fields, he curled the ball into the top corner with the precision of a trusted gunslinger.

He didn’t break stride, from the moment he touched the ball with his left foot to divert it into a zone from where he could pull the trigger, the way he spun to face goal, the touch that pushed the ball to where he wanted and the final touch that produced the curl that sent the ball into the top corner, the entire action a rhythm of excellence as the ruthless marksman completed his task in style.

Of course, there have been better goals scored in Super Diski, and maybe, Denver Mukamba’s sublime strike at Rufaro on Sunday, the way he subtracted his opponent, cut inside and then, from the edge of the box, swept the ball into the corner, with pace and accuracy, was a better one than Ndoro’s third goal.

But, given how Ndoro suffered, this time last year, when his then coach Eric Tinkler appeared to regard him as excess baggage that should be dumped out of Orlando Pirates, blowing holes into the confidence of a man who plays in a position where rhythm and confidence, which comes with playing regularly and scoring a number of goals, are everything, just seeing him score with such swagger was special and a beautiful sight to behold.

His critics have always claimed that Ndoro is one-dimensional, he just runs and pulls the trigger, he lacks the technique needed for one to be a successful modern-day forward in a game whose defenders are getting clever, faster and can also play the ball and — just like Tinkler at the beginning of last season — they say he lacks the quality to make it at the very top.

Admittedly, football has changed a lot since the days when Ghetto M’pariwa, Shacky Tauro, the man the late great football commentator Choga Tichatonga Gavhure called, “Mr Goals, Chinyaride, Bere, mazita kuita kupfekerana,” Never “Maswerasei” Chiku and the likes would just position themselves in the box and wait for one chance and bury it.

Football has become scientific and teams can now even play with a false number nine, which means that those strikers who want to still remain relevant have to adapt and not only improve the way they defend, but also how they position themselves, how they feed off the creative arms of their teams and where, in the past, they would only roam the penalty areas, they are now seen to spend a lot of time roaming the wings.

And, watching Ndoro on Wednesday score a tap-in, positioning himself at the right place at the right time, then scoring a downward header that bounced off the turf to give the ‘keeper no chance and then turning smartly to curl the ball into the top corner for the third, provided us with the full package that one expects from a striker.

One delirious Orlando Pirates fan, overwhelmed by the impact that Ndoro made in his team’s game on Wednesday night, even went to the extent of offering the Zimbabwean forward his daughter as a wife and, for good measure, told him that he didn’t even need to worry about paying lobola.

Of course, one swallow doesn’t make a summer and scoring three goals against Golden Arrows doesn’t suddenly turn one into a superstar and, to his credit, Ndoro is refusing to embrace the rave reviews that have been coming his way from both the South African and Zimbabwean media.

There will be tougher opponents than Golden Arrows in the future and there will be good chances that will be blown away, as happens to any striker, and the same Pirates fans, who have been calling him a hero since his beauty and assist knocked out Mamelodi Sundowns from the Nedbank Cup semi-finals last season, can turn on him quickly and start calling him a “mukwerekwere, a donkey who must be sent home back to Zimbabwe”.

Football is a brutal game and leading the line, especially for a big team like Pirates where you will always be judged by the number of goals you score, where you are only as good as your last game, where you have to do more to win the hearts of the fans when you are a foreigner, especially a Zimbabwean, can be a very lonely and very, very demanding job.

Ndoro, to his credit, appears to know that and rather than getting drowned in the blaze of publicity that has followed his brilliant second half show on Wednesday night, he remains rooted to the ground, telling the journalists that he still has a lot to learn from his new coach and, hopefully, as time goes on, he will get better and better.

And, more importantly, he credits God for the transformation that has happened in his career in the past year, where he has gone from an unwanted striker who should have been dumped out of the club into the man Pirates, the only Southern African club to be crowned champions of Africa, can rely on for their goal supply.

GOOD THINGS USUALLY GO

TO THE GOOD MEN

Maybe, it’s only fair that a player like Ndoro should be rewarded abundantly in his career because, more than being a good footballer, something that will last when his talent fades away, when age catches up with him and he settles to the reality that he can’t run as fast, he can’t turn as quickly and he can’t shoot as powerfully, he is a damn good man.

And that is more important than being a good footballer.

When former Amazulu captain David Mkandawire’s plight that he had turned into a destitute in Johannesburg was highlighted, Ndoro was the only member of our footballers based in South Africa who had the heart to go and look for his countryman.

He roamed the streets of Kempton Park, where Mkandawire, who also played for the University of Pretoria before he fell on hard times, would wander aimlessly, throughout the day, in dirty faded clothes, plucking food from the bins just to keep himself alive, to look for his countryman.

He felt he could provide a helping hand, help his countryman change a life that had skidded off the rails and when he eventually found him, it proved to be a game-changer for Mkandawire whose plight had deteriorated so much that he needed psychiatric help in a specialist hospital.

Ndoro’s spirited efforts to change the life of a fellow countryman who had fallen on bad times caught the attention of Robert Marawa, an iconic and influential figure when it comes to sports presenting in South Africa through his television and radio shows, and their interview — related to Mawarire’s plight — caught the attention of the people of the Rainbow Nation.

Of course, what makes Ndoro’s efforts even more special is that he isn’t the best-paid Zimbabwean footballer in South Africa and plays for a club that is known not to have a rigid paying structure that doesn’t compare favourably with the likes of Mamelodi Sundowns.

Until last year, he was playing for an obscure Mpumalanga football club that has since been disbanded after its owners sold the franchise to a Cape Town businessman.

That is why Ndoro has worked his way into the hearts of millions of people, including some who are not even football fans, who have been charmed by his charitable side and, maybe, it’s only right that he should be blessed abundantly.

Mkandawire’s mother, who was moved from Malawi to come and be with his son as he recovered in hospital in Johannesburg, thanked Ndoro for the great work that he did to rescue her son from the streets and give David a new lease of life.

When such old people speak highly of you, and wish you well, chances are that you will be showered with blessings and maybe Ndoro is being driven by the spirits of goodwill which have been charmed by the fact that he is a good man.

Of course, he has his weakness, like all of us, and there have been some nasty tabloid stories about him in South Africa, related to his romances, or failed romances, and the more that he weeds that from his profile the better for him and his future.

WELCOME BACK

DENVER MUKAMBA

I have never doubted the qualities of Denver Mukamba, the footballer, and I have taken a lot of stick for that, especially after he failed to make the kind of impact that we all thought he was going to make when he moved to South Africa.

Of course, I have always had issues with Denver, the person, because I always felt that he leaves himself too exposed to things that end up affecting his game and his handlers need to advise him of about a footballer who used to play for Manchester United called Lee Sharpe who, to some, was as good, if not better, than Ryan Giggs.

During the 1991/92 season, Sir Alex Ferguson turned up at Sharpe’s house and found the rising star, and his friend Giggs, having a wild party, with drinks and women all over the house, which the United manager abruptly ended and warned the two players that, from now, they would either behave or they would be thrown out of his team.

Giggs decided to heed his manager’s warning and, to his credit, developed into one of the greatest players to ever play for United.

Sharpe decided to ignore his manager and, four years later, he was out of United and on the road to ruin.

“If booze and gambling and injuries don’t get you, the tabloids surely will,” The Guardian newspaper said in their reflection of Sharpe, a talent that was wasted.

“And Sharpe. Well, he’s Lee Sharpe isn’t he? Threw it all away. Manchester United at 17, England at 19, PFA Young Player the same year, after a brilliant hat-trick in the 6-2 rout against Arsenal back in 1990 when the League Cup still meant something.

“Could have been left-side for England for years. Look at this summer’s World Cup, crying out for a number 11. That could have been Sharpey — still only 31 — but no.

“He left that office chat with Ferguson and lost his way. Left Manchester United soon after for Leeds United, but the rumours and tabloids followed. Just a handful of appearances there, then it was off on loan to Sampdoria, only to see David Platt leave within a month, and the lad from Halesowen, then 28, went back ‘as quick as I could’ to Bradford City.

“He was forced to scratch around on trial at Grimsby and Rotherham; neither worked out. And so last month it was to the Third Division and Exeter City for a game-by-game deal that collapsed soon after this interview.

“Now, he does not even have a club. That’s what happened to Lee Sharpe.”

It could have happened to Denver, but someone appeared to have had a serious talk with him, of late, and that goal on Sunday was a reminder that he could slowly be finding his way back.

Hopefully, it’s time for his football to make the headlines.

TO GOD BE THE GLORY!

Come on Warriors!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Khamaldinhooooooooooooooooooo!

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SHARUKO ON SATURDAY 

ONE of the most remarkable events in the history of mankind occurred on Europe’s Western Front during World War One when on December 25 in 1914, German and the British soldiers downed their machine guns and played a football match to mark the Christmas Truce. Men who had, for years, turned the front into the bloodiest killing fields the world had ever known, temporarily froze their savage instincts, for once appreciating the value of life in that orgy of death, and chose a football match to toast the day they didn’t turn guns on each other.

As the two teams battled on the rugged makeshift football pitch, in the No Man’s Land that separated the trenches of the two armies, some German soldiers, supporting their colleagues playing the game, provided their English rivals with beers, and exchanged cigarettes in the beauty of that temporary break in hostilities.

For a fleeting moment in the darkness of war, football — the sport Pele would later call the most beautiful game in the world — provided an escape route from the voracious monster of war that had devoured millions of men on both sides of a fiery conflict whose intensity and destruction had not been seen in the world before.

The result of the match, of course, was irrelevant in that island of humanity, amid an ocean of brutality, and when the day passed, the hostilities resumed and the Great War would rage on for another four years, leaving a trail of destruction as the deadliest conflict in world history, by then, claimed the lives of nine million soldiers and seven million civilians.

But, when the world reflects on the madness that triggered that Great War, the stupidity of the politicians who fuelled it and the foolishness of the army generals who encouraged it, it also remembers that beautiful moment when arms were downed on Christmas Day and the rival soldiers played football.

For all its beauty, though, football also has a very, very dark side.

And none darker than the events of 1969, when El Salvador and Honduras went to war, known as the Football War, in the wake of the acrimony that stalked their ill-fated qualifiers for the 1970 FIFA World Cup.

The first game in the Honduran capital, Tegucigalpa, on June 8, 1969, was won by the hosts 1-0 although it was marred by violent disturbances as fans from the two nations engaged in fierce long battles.

Then, on June 15, 1969, El Salvador ran out comprehensive 3-0 winners in San Salvador but, with a large Honduran immigrant population resident in that city, the defeat of the visiting teams, coupled with the riots that had marred the first game, serious violence erupted between the supporters.

FIFA ordered a play-off game, to decide the winner, on neutral soil and on June 26, 1969, in Mexico City, El Salvador beat their rivals 3-2 in extra-time of a gripping context that had both countries on the edge amid an explosion of nationalistic bravado.

Shortly after that match El Salvador cut all diplomatic ties with the Hondurans with a declaration that “the government of Honduras has not taken any effective measures to punish these crimes which constitute genocide, nor has it given assurances of indemnification or reparations for the damages caused to Salvadorans.”

A war broke out between the two countries, 300 000 Salvadorans were displaced and more than 1 200 people were dead by the time the other regional nations intervened to stop the war from escalation but, since then, relations between the two countries have never been cordial more than 40 years later.

WHAT IS IT ABOUT FOOTBALL THAT TURNS PEOPLE INTO MANIACS?

There is something about football that turns even some decent people into maniacs, something that makes them dump their dignity and, in that frenzied mob, they become so deranged they even find pleasure in singing about human waste, can you believe it, loudly singing “team yemad****i, DeMbare, team yemad****i, KepeKepe, team yemad****i, Highlander.”

We have heard this tune, again and again, and tolerated it as if it’s a fitting soundtrack to the rivalry that exists among the Big Three of our domestic Premiership, as acceptable banter at our stadiums even when it is so toxic that it poisons the innocent minds of the young fans who come to watch these games.

Sadly, the more we have accepted this nonsense, because we say it’s acceptable banter, the more it has bred the maniacs who now believe they can go a step further, beyond the acceptable boundaries of rivalry, and become shameless merchants of doom who believe the stadium provides a fitting playground for their vile tribal chants.

Like that deranged Highlanders fan displaying that shocking banner, at Barbourfields on Sunday, telling the world he believes the Shona-speaking people are “DOGS” and “BABOONS.”

And, because we are such a polarised society that finds comfort in re-treatment in denial, rather than confront this maniac and shame him for his shocking views, which have no place in a modern world, we have had a big constituency that has chosen to be highly critical of us for publishing his picture.

They have found ammunition to try and shoot the messenger, rather than deal with the toxicity of the message, and condemning the man who dared bring it to the big stage of the biggest club football match in this country, a thriller that was deservedly won by Bosso with that spectacular late show.

Twitter has been buzzing with some people accusing us of irresponsibility, for publishing that picture so that we confront the cancer we should all collectively deal with, for the sake of a better tomorrow, with some even accusing us of selective usage of the images from Barbourfields by ignoring banners from the good Bosso fans who preached peace and condemned violence.

Stuck in their defensive mode, they have chosen to ignore the gravity of the words which that madman chose to parade, at the biggest football game in the City of Kings, arguing that he should have been ignored when doing so would have given him an impression that what he was saying, what he believes in, is correct.

Admittedly, in a high-profile fixture that has been plagued by violence in the past, it’s important that the images of those who are condemning violence, and preaching peace, should be published because they are doing a very, very good thing and, for the avoidance of doubt, that is why we have published them in today’s newspaper because that was always the plan.

But, still, that doesn’t mean the poisonous views of that individual should also be ignored because by confronting our demons, only then can we find ways of fighting them so that we create a society, not blinded by tribal hatred, for ourselves and, crucially, for our kids who shouldn’t be burdened by the sins of their fathers.

If that hoodlum was a Dynamos fan, telling the world that the Ndebele people are “DOGS” and “BABOONS”, he would have received equal harsh treatment because his views have been misplaced and have no place in our society.

And what is key here is accepting that, when we see such images, we have should find ways of fighting that cancer so that we live in harmony where we accept our identity as Zimbabweans instead of people divided by tribal factions.

NO GUMZ, TWO WRONGS DO NOT MAKE A RIGHT MDALA WAMI

I’m neither Shona nor Ndebele, which probably makes me a fair referee here.

I am a Nguni boy — whose forefathers were part of the great Zulu kingdom under the militaristic King Shaka — a direct descendant of Zwangendaba of the Jele Gumbi clan, a product of the Mfecane rebellion that saw my people leaving KwaZulu Natal and settling in the Chipata area of Zambia, the same way Mzilikazi rebelled against Shaka and ended settling with his people in today’s Matabeleland, I’m closer to the Ndebeles than the Shonas.

For, once in a while, my Nguni people and their Ndebele counterparts were part of the same great Zulu Kingdom.

The only remaining father left, in my extended family, is Cosmas Zulu, the man domestic football calls Tsano, who has served his beloved Highlanders, with distinction, for years and who is one of the influential voices in the Bosso technical set-up, a man who loves his Bosso to the core and who, when he finally retires — even though I don’t see that happening soon given his passion and good health — will be remembered as one this club’s greatest servants.

But I don’t interfere in his work, neither does he interfere in mine, even though as a son I wish him well, all the time, and therefore, all those accusations that I have been getting that I’m against this tribe, I’m a horrible tribalist who promotes the interests of the Shona people, is absolutely hogwash.

What isn’t right, like that sickening message in that banner by that Bosso hoodlum, isn’t right and should simply be condemned and, crucially, this newspaper and its Editors were very clear to, every time, put a disclaimer that the views of that fool didn’t represent the views of most of the Bosso fans.

Bosso chief executive, Ndumiso Gumede, told our sister newspaper, Chronicle, that we allegedly ignore vile songs from the Mpilo End, which houses Dynamos fans, when they sing vile songs attacking Highlanders and yet we are quick to go to town to condemn the message in that offensive banner by that Highlanders hoodlum.

“There is a very strong song that has been sung from the Mpilo End comparing Highlanders to feaces yet there has not been any condemnation,” Gumede said.

“When things are done by other parties they are downplayed. We think as the Fourth Estate (read The Herald), you went overboard with highlighting negativity.”

Admittedly, Gumz, that vile song describing Bosso as human waste is horrible, and it’s something that I have said earlier in this column, and that it’s used, too, by the CAPS United fans to taunt their DeMbare rivals and vice-versa doesn’t make it right and it deserved to be condemned.

But there is a big difference, Gumz, between describing Dynamos as “DOGS” or “BABOONS” and describing an entire ethnic grouping as “DOGS” or “BABOONS.”

Dynamos is just a football club and taunting the Glamour Boys is not the same as taunting an ethnic grouping because some of the finest players, to play for them, are not necessarily Shona people and one of their greatest sons, Moses Chunga, who calls himself the greatest of all-time, traces his roots from Malawi.

The finest Dynamos leader of all-time, Morrison Sifelani, was certainly not Shona and Daniel “Dhidhidhi” Ncube, Makwinji Soma-Phiri, Lovemore “Magents” Ncube and Ronald “Gidiza” Sibanda, who made their mark at the Glamour Boys, are certainly not Shona people.

Highlanders, too, proudly calls itself the team of the nation, “Highlander, ithimu yezwe lonke,” and that is true because it has fans everywhere in this country and its players, including the fellow who scored the winner on Sunday, have come from all the corners of this nation.

Two wrongs, Gumz, don’t make a right.

THE VILE CHANTS THAT HAVE POSIONED THE LIVERPOOL/UNITED DUEL

Liverpool hoodlums sing a song, mocking their Manchester United rivals for that plane crash in the German city of Munich, which wiped away a generation of the United stars in 1958, whose sickening lyrics say “who’s that dying on the runway, who’s that dying in the snow? It’s Matt Busby and his boys making such a f**king noise coz they can’t get their aeroplane to go.”

Twenty-one-year-old Martin Edwards, the youngest player to play for England since World War II, who was so good he was tipped by many to become the finest English player of all-time, escaped from that plane crash with multiple leg fractures, fractured ribs, severely damaged kidneys and, for about a week, surprised even the doctors treating him with his amazing fight for his life as an entire nation, united by both grief and prayer for the survival of their latest superstar, held its breath.

But, just when it appeared as if he was out of danger, he died and plunged the entire nation into mourning.

He made such a huge impact there is Housing Complex in Manchester named after him while hundreds of thousands of people visit his grave every year.

But, his iconic status hasn’t spared him from vile chants and Liverpool fans regularly sing, “Duncan Edwards is manure, rotting in his grave, Man U are manure, rotting in your grave, Man U, Mau U went on a plane, Man U, Man U never came back again.”

They say letters making up MUNICH, where the plane crashed, stand for Man U Never Intended Coming Home.”

And, the response of the United hoodlums is brutal as they also mock Liverpool for their 96 fans who died during the Hillsborough disaster with a sickening song that says “who’s that choking on their vomit, who’s that turning f**king blue, it’s a Scouser and his mate crushed behind the Hillsborough gates and they won’t be singing Munich anymore.”

When the two giants clashed in a Europa Cup showdown this year, Liverpool fans arriving in Manchester were greeted with giant banners which said “THE SUN WERE RIGHT, YOU’RE MURDERERS.”

All this isn’t right and, to their credit, UEFA fined both United and Liverpool for those vile chants.

TO GOD BE THE GLORY!

Come on Warriors!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Khamaldinhooooooooooooooooo!

Text Feedback – 0772545199

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Email – robsharuko@gmail.com

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Chat with me on Facebook, follow me on Twitter @Chakariboy, interact with me on Viber or read my material in The Southern Times and online on the sports website www.sportszone.co.zw. The authoritative ZBC weekly television football magazine programme, Game Plan, is back and interact with me and the legendary Charles “CNN” Mabika every Monday evening.

SHARUKO ON SATURDAY
IT has been a great year where sporting underdogs have punched above their weight — Leicester City defying 5000-1 odds to win their FIRST English Premiership title, Portugal refusing to melt in Paris to shock France to win their FIRST Euro title and the Cleveland Cavaliers upstaging favourites

Golden State Warriors to win the NBA title for the FIRST time.

Golf, without a dominant figure since Tiger Woods crumbled under the weight of injuries and off-the-course controversy, saw its flagship Major championships being grabbed by FIRST-TIME winners this year — Danny Willet taking the Masters, Dustin Johnson winning the US Open, Henrik Stenson taking the British Open and Jimmy Walker winning the US PGA title.

Angelique Kerber won her FIRST Grand Slam title at the Australian Open this year, beating favourite Serena Williams, and when she also won the US Open this month, her FIRST title at Flushing Meadows, she became the FIRST German player to win that title since the immortal Steffi Graff in 1996, while also toppling Serena from her position as world number one.

Of course, Garbine Muguruza, also won her FIRST Grand Slam title, shocking Serena at the French Open, becoming the FIRST Spaniard to win a Grand Slam on the women’s tour since Arantxa Sanchez-Vicario’s victory that was also delivered in the French capital in 1998.

And, of course, forgive me if you think I have downplayed it, this is the year our gallant Warriors ended 10 years of waiting, and all the frustrations that go with that, for a place at the Nations Cup finals, winning their ticket with a game to spare.

By the way, our Mighty Warriors wrote the romantic fairytale of the football tournament at the Rio Olympics by becoming the FIRST Zimbabwean representatives to play at that grand stage of the game.

If this is a sporting year, scripted for the underdogs, from little Iceland’s sensational victory over the English footballers who believe their inflated egos and massive salaries make them super-humans and should guarantee success, to Leicester joining a pantheon of major sporting upsets which cost bookmakers $15 million in payouts, then the domestic Premiership should provide us with a new chapter to this fascinating script.

And, it doesn’t matter, does it, should FC Platinum win it?

The Zvishavane miners lead an explosive race, by just a point, with six games left in the marathon, and should they hold on they could become the FIRST club from outside Harare and Bulawayo, to win the league championship in exactly 50 years, with Father Davies’ St Paul’s of Musami, Murehwa, being the only club to do that.

Or, let’s say, if CAPS United win it.

The Green Machine, just a point behind the leaders, have stubbornly refused to fall by the wayside, despite being weighed down by a barrage of challenges, including financial difficulties which could have destroyed their campaign, and are chasing a FIRST league title in 11 years and only a fourth in 36 years.

And Highlanders, just THREE points behind CAPS United, have bounced back in spectacular style, completing their first sweep of eternal rivals Dynamos in 10 years, and should they win the league title, this year, it will be their FIRST league championship in a decade.

The three leading contenders, in the championship race, might not be domestic football lightweights, but if one of them win the title, as is likely to be the case, they would have written another chapter in a year when those who were not expected to triumph —either because they have been serial failures in the past 10 years or, in the case of FC Platinum, are battling the vagaries of history — found a way to succeed.

WAS IT A JUSTIFIED REBELLION OR SIMPLY SHEER MADNESS?

Last Saturday, the CAPS United players staged another rebellion, something they do with frustrating regularity these days, when they initially refused to leave their team bus in protest over the delayed payment of their August salaries and delaying their Chibuku Super Cup first round tie against Tsholotsho by more than half-an-hour.

While the Green Machine players have a right to withhold their labour, in the event their employers are not delivering on their contractual obligations, it’s the manner in which the CAPS United players have styled their protests which leaves a lot to be desired and has fed into accusations they are just a bunch of mercenaries without the interests of this club at heart.

Last year, they travelled all the way to Bulawayo, went into camp on the eve of their game against How Mine and, then, at the very last minute — when they knew it was now impossible for their management to bring in other players to play in that match — decided they would not board the team bus to Luveve for the match.

They waited until the very, very last minute to stage their rebellion and, amid the chaos that exploded in the City of Kings, the game which had been scheduled to be broadcast live on SuperSport was abandoned.

That the CAPS United’s boss back then, Twine Phiri, was also the Premier Soccer League chairman, only piled the humiliation on the PSL leadership given the actions of his players had not only tainted, but strained, the relationship between the top-flight league and their official television broadcast partners.

The How Mine fans, and other neutrals, who had spent their hard-earned funds to travel to Luveve, were also inconvenienced by the in-house issues at CAPS United which had nothing to do with them, and the tragedy was that no-one was there to reimburse them the expenses they incurred that day.

Then, a few weeks later, they went to the Lowveld and turned on a performance, which was a mockery to their high standards, in what was a clear protest against their leadership, as they crashed to a humiliating 0-4 defeat at the hands of Triangle.

Some of their fans, who had also travelled all the way from the capital, could not stomach it and even tried to attack their players.

Englishman Mark Harrison, brought in at the beginning of that year to provide the technical touch the CAPS United leaders felt was needed, could not take it anymore and, on June 16 last year, he walked away from the club, saying he had suffered incredible psychological trauma, crossing the border to join Township Rollers in Botswana where he won the 2015/2016 league championship.

After a period of relative stability, the demons returned just before the trip to Hwange when the CAPS United players demanded to be paid in cash as if they were living on an oasis awash with cash on a desert where the reality is that cash has been hard to come by and rejecting the money that had been transferred into their bank accounts.

And last Saturday, they took their madness to another level, once again employing their tactics of waiting for the very last-minute to make their statement, and in the process inconveniencing Tsholotsho, who had nothing to do with their in-house issues, and had planned to travel back shortly after 5pm when the light was still fine.

Yes, they might have issues, just like the majority of the clubs, but for them to inconvenience opponents, who have nothing to do with their madness, to insult a sponsor who is the only one who has been injecting money into the league — both in the championship and the knockout tournament — in these tough economic times, is unacceptable.

For them to wait until the last minute, to withdraw their labour, leaving their coach without an avenue to bring in other players to play in that game, was a sensational act of sabotage that was also an insult to the fans who have stuck with this team even when it hasn’t rewarded them with a league title in 11 years of cumulative failure.

The same fans who shower them with cash donations, on the occasions they do very well, and whose patronage has remained strong in the 11 years the team has staggered in the darkness while their biggest rivals Dynamos have, within that period, won five league titles — including four on the trot — and qualified for the semi-finals of the CAF Champions League.

SACRIFICING A TOURNAMENT THAT COULD HAVE PROVIDED FINANCIAL RELIEF

Given the financial rewards that come with winning the Chibuku Super Cup, where a team needs to win just four games to take home $75 000, one would have thought this knockout tournament provided the CAPS United players with the best possible avenue of dealing with their financial challenges and all they needed to do was win the tourney.

But instead they chose to plunge into another rebellion and this deflected their focus and when they finally decided to play or rather simply fulfil the fixture, they suffered the embarrassment of being knocked out by a team they were largely expected to beat in their backyard having beaten Tsholotsho in Bulawayo.

Tsholotsho coach, Lizwe Sweswe, then provided the CAPS United players with a reality check in his post-match comments when he told reporters of the serious challenges he was facing just to assemble his team, who have their own serious financial challenges, and then take them all over the country for their assignments in the league and knockout tournaments.

Even club legend, Silver “Bhonzo” Chigwenje, severely criticised the current players, going to the extent of labelling some of them as mercenaries, and it’s hard to disagree with him when one considers that the Hwange players — whom the Green Machine failed to beat home and away in the league — haven’t been paid their salaries this year.

Bulawayo City, who thrashed CAPS United 3-1 in the City of Kings, have also had issues with non-payment of salaries and staged a protest, against their leaders by refusing to train, but only after they had hammered the Green Machine.

Wouldn’t it have had made sense that the players win the tournament, and the rich pickings that come with it, and then ask their leadership they want so much from the proceeds, or even everything they would have won, than engage in that rebellion, and lose everything as happened, while the fans — who have backed them in tough times — were also left to suffer?

Maybe, in the year of the sporting underdogs, Tsholotsho would still have won that game, without all the distractions that accompanied it, because —after all — Kelvin Kaindu tasted the joy, for the first time, of beating Dynamos the following day.

FOOTBALL ISN’T A HORRIBLE GAME, AFTER ALL

After dedicating last week’s column to the madness of that Bosso hoodlum, and the toxicity of the message that was displayed on his sickening placard, I have to say I was charmed this week to learn that football, after all, is such a beautiful game.

The family of a cancer-stricken five-year-old Sunderland fan, Bradley Lowrey, has raised £700 000 — with Everton donating £200 000 towards that cause — to enable him to fund potentially life-saving treatment in the United States.

Bradley, looking frail, captured the imagination of the world when he walked out as his club’s mascot in the league match against Everton and, at the five-minute mark of the game, both sets of fans chanted his name.

Now, he is on his way to the United States for treatment and that is largely because of the power of football.

TO GOD BE THE GLORY!

Come on Warriors!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Khamaldinhooooooooooooooooo!

Text Feedback – 0772545199

WhatsApp Messenger – 0772545199

Email – robsharuko@gmail.com

Skype – sharuko58

Chat with me on Facebook, follow me on Twitter @Chakariboy, interact with me on Viber or read my material in The Southern Times or on www.sportszone.co.zw. The authoritative ZBC weekly television football magazine programme, Game Plan, is back on air and you can interact with me and the legendary Charles “CNN” Mabika every Monday evening.

SHARUKO ON SATURDAY
EXACTLY a year ago, I described Sam Allardyce, as a “FOOLISH COACH CALLED BIG SAM” and it provoked a fierce backlash from people who felt the criticism was not only unacceptable, but was a vicious, if not sickening, blow below the belt.

I warned that Allardyce, just like pop superstar John Lennon who was gunned down by a deranged fan shortly after telling the world his super group, The Beatles, were more popular than Jesus, would pay dearly for the blasphemy in his autobiography called “Big Sam,” released last year.

I reminded Allardyce that, for years, the world had witnessed those who had mocked the Lord — after being fooled by their sudden success in either sport or music — falling on their sword in spectacular fashion.

Lennon told the London Evening Standard’s journalist Maureen Cleave in March 1966, he believed Christianity was in decline and his pop group — then the best band in the world whose music was rocking the globe —had become more popular than Jesus Christ.

“CHRISTIANITY WILL GO. IT WILL VANISH AND SHRINK. I NEEDN’T ARGUE ABOUT THAT, I’M RIGHT AND I’LL BE PROVED RIGHT,” Lennon thundered in that interview.

“WE’RE MORE POPULAR THAN JESUS NOW, I DON’T KNOW WHICH WILL GO FIRST — ROCK ‘N’ ROLL OR CHRISTIANITY. JESUS WAS ALRIGHT BUT HIS DISCIPLES WERE THICK AND ORDINARY. IT’S THEM TWISTING IT THAT RUINS IT FOR ME.”

I reminded Big Sam that Lennon was murdered on December 8, 1980 by Mark David Chapman, who had become a born-again Christian in 1970, and had been incensed by the musician’s remarks which he felt were blasphemous.

Why was I warning Big Sam you might wonder?

Well, he had brewed quite a shocker, in his autobiography called “BIG SAM,” in which, just like Lennon before him, he made some sickening remarks.

“It does rankle with me at times, the double standards you see in the Press. JESUS WALKS ON WATER AND THEY BUILD A RELIGION AROUND HIM,” Big Sam wrote in his book.

“I get Bolton into the top six with one of the smallest budgets in the Premiership and everybody calls me a long-ball manager. ANYWAY, IF JESUS IS SUCH A MIRACLE WORKER, HOW COME HE GOT CAUGHT? YOU’VE GOT TO WIN YOUR BATTLES.

“By the way, the walking-on-water thing is a myth. I’m not saying he didn’t do it, just that it’s easier than it looks. Any non-Newtonian fluid of a minimum viscosity can be subjected to a short period of shear stress if the body exerting the force is light enough — and people were a lot smaller in biblical times, that’s a known fact.

“We actually tried it on a warm-weather camp in La Manga once. We filled the pool with corn flour and Sammy Lee was able to run across without breaking the surface. We’ve got the Prozone printouts to prove it.”

Really!

I reminded Big Sam that even those who built The Titanic, boasted “not even God himself could sink this ship,” but we all know what happened on that maiden voyage to the United States, downed by an iceberg.

And I told him about Tancredo Neves, a Brazilian Presidential candidate who said if he got 500 000 votes from his party, not even God would stop him becoming the country’s President.

Of course, he got the votes but, a day before his inauguration as Brazilian President, he was taken ill and died before taking his oath of office.

BIG SAM SACKED AS ENGLAND MANAGER, AFTER JUST 67 DAYS

When Big Sam was sacked as England manager on Tuesday, after his position became untenable having been caught up in a sting operation by the Daily Telegraph newspaper negotiating a £400 000 deal, to speak about football in the Far East with journalists-disguised-as-businessmen, and telling them it was easy to go around the FA rules on player transfers, it made front page and back page headlines around the world.

The English tabloids feasted on him, their voracious appetite for such sensational stories consuming Big Sam and savaging him for the greed that pushed the coach to negotiate for a £400 000 payment, with people he didn’t know when his fat pay cheque of £3 million a year was the highest that a national football team manager was earning the world.

In a game awash with money, and very low on morality and responsibility, Big Sam was this week cast as the ultimate Judas Iscariot and, given that his job demanded maintaining the highest standards of ethics, his comments, caught on camera, saying it was possible for agents to circumvent the FA rules on transfers and third-party ownership of players, were unacceptable.

And he simply had to go.

My Twitter account exploded as readers of this column went back memory lane to that article I penned on this blog, in October last year, warning Big Sam that his blasphemous attacks would bury him sooner than he expected and mocking the Lord, in such brazen fashion, was very foolish.

“In October last year, @Chakariboy wrote this article about Big Sam and, in almost a year, what he wrote has come to pass,” Handreck Matingwina posted on Twitter, attaching the article to accompany that post.

Inevitably, it provoked a number of responses with Daddy Farai tweeting, “@Chakariboy (it) serves him right, you can’t mock God and get away with it. ‘Look who is walking now?’” while Mufaro Masuka tweeted, “@Chakariboy you are a prophet. I was frantically looking for this article. I follow your Saturday column.”

And Adolphus Chinomwe posed a question: “@Chakariboy, prophet or genius?”

Of course, Adolphus, I’m not a prophet, my good brother Walter Magaya is the one who is a prophet, but one doesn’t need to be a prophet to realise there are some red lines that we simply can’t cross and one of them is that you can’t mock the Lord, the way Big Sam did, and get away with it.

Big Sam only lasted one game, and 67 days, as England coach, the shortest reign by a coach in the job he described as his “dream job.”

For some of us, who questioned his brazen blasphemy, there is a symbolism in the spectacular disintegration of his leadership of the Three Lions, the English national football team, in 67 days.

The numbers SIX and SEVEN have strong symbolism in the Bible and in life because, in case Big Sam didn’t know, Exodus 20:11 tells us that “For SIX days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, the sea and all that is in them but He rested on the SEVENTH DAY. Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and made it Holy.”

Exodus 34:21 tells us, “SIX days you shall labour but on the SEVENTH day you shall rest; even during the ploughing season and harvest, you must rest,” while job 5:19 tells us “from SIX calamities He will rescue you, in SEVEN no harm will touch you.”

Deuteronomy 15:12 tells us, “If any of your people — Hebrew men or women — sell themselves to you and serve you SIX years, in the SEVENTH year you must let them go free.”

Israel took over Jerusalem on June 7, 1967 (6/7/67) after the Israel Defence Forces paratroopers powered through the Old City and marched towards the Temple Mount and the Western Wall, bringing Jerusalem’s holiest site under Jewish control for the first time in 2000 years.

That takeover followed the 1967 Arab-Israeli SIX-day War and the fact that this war took SIX days, in ‘67, has always carried great significance in the religious world.

You see Big Sam, there is a red line you simply can’t cross, even if you are a coach who is charge of the England national football team and earns a staggering £3 million a year.

A PEOPLE WHO ARE QUICK TO CONDEMN THEIR HEROES

When news broke out on Monday evening that Knowledge Musona was one of a number of players being investigated by Belgian gambling authorities for placing bets on football matches in that country, our football community held its breath and, for a very good reason, too.

Admittedly, Musona should know that modern football, in an era where betting has become a multi-billion dollar industry with thousands of hawks waiting for an opportunity to compromise its integrity through the rigging of matches, has no place for professional footballers who place bets on the outcome of matches.

Even when they have no control on what happens in those games.

He should also know that gambling destroyed the careers of many professional footballers, who had better talents than him, including the mercurial English international Paul Merson who blew £80 000 of his pension on a gambling frenzy and whose cumulative losses to gambling ran in excess of £7 million.

Another Arsenal legend, Tony Adams, the irresistible Paul “Gazza” Gascoigne and the legendary Diego Maradona all suffered from serious gambling habits.

What I find irritating, though, is that, suddenly, some of us are quick to viciously attack Musona, including a group who even have had the audacity to suggest Musona was also placing bets on Warriors’ matches, which they can’t prove and which might not be true, amid a wave of innuendos in which they cast him as a serial cheat.

While his club, KV Oostende were quick to defend him, some of us are quick to condemn him with others even telling a local newspapers he wasn’t a footballer they trusted, reviving those unsubstantiated claims by the previous ZIFA leadership — a hopeless group of Stone Age administrators who always saw shadows — suggesting he was a rotten apple.

Musona needs help, and not rejection, because he has been the country’s leading footballer, for the past six years, and it’s a fact that no player has done more to the cause of the Warriors, since the immortal Peter Ndlovu, than the Smiling Assassin.

He has transformed himself into team’s talisman who takes responsibility when there are pressure situations, like taking a pressure-packed penalties, at the National Sports Stadium.

Khama Billiat might have emerged, in the past two years, as a driving force for the Warriors — destroying defences with his nimble feet and goals, including three that helped power us to the 2017 Nations Cup finals — but Musona remains the leader of the team in attack, the one who sets the tempo and his form, usually, is crucial to our success.

Such is his impact, in the team, that between 2010 and May 2014, Musona was the only Warrior who scored goals away from home in either the Nations Cup or World Cup qualifiers, scoring four times (one in Liberia, one in Cape Verde, one in Burundi and one in Egypt), with his goal-return, away from home in the 10 years between 2004 and 2014, better than King Peter (two goals) and Benjani, Malajila, Nengomasha, Nyandoro and Kawondera with one goal each.

Musona scored three goals, the same tally which Billiat grabbed, as they played leading roles in powering the Warriors to the 2017 Nations Cup, and given that he is a vital cog for the team, he generates a lot of interest among the fans who value his great contribution to the Warriors.

At least Musona, unlike Big Sam, hasn’t questioned the power of the Lord which suggests there is a window for his rehabilitation so that he focuses on a career that is blossoming and could even scale greater heights.

Poor Big Sam, gone in 67 days, and when he finds time he should read James 1 verses 6-7 (that SIX and SEVEN simply won’t go away): “But when you ask you must believe and not doubt because the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind. That person should not expect to receive anything from the Lord.”

And, in case you doubt Big Sam, I refer you to Galatians 6:7 (that SIX and SEVEN simply won’t go away), “Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man sow, that shall he also reap.”

Need I say more?

TO GOD BE THE GLORY!

Come on Warriors!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Khamaldinhoooooooooooooooooo!

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Chat with me on Facebook, follow me on Twitter @Chakariboy, interact with me on Viber or read my material in The Southern Times or on www.sportszone.co.zw. The authoritative ZBC weekly television football magazine programme, Game Plan, is back on air and you can interact with me and the legendary Charles “CNN” Mabika every Monday evening.

SHARUKO ON SATURDAY 

THE joke in town this week was that Dynamos, with 39 points, might need to borrow the points amassed by Border Strikers, who have 14 points, for the Glamour Boys to catch up with CAPS United’s tally of 53 points.It’s a measure of how things have dramatically changed this year, the Green Machine fans can now find an oasis of comfort, where they can come up with such jokes to mock their bitter rivals, in what used to be a bleak desert of discomfort when they repeatedly took a pounding, for half-a-dozen years, at the hands of the Glamour Boys.

Such has been the stunning change of fortunes that, even if CAPS United were to call time on their season today, donating the remaining 12 points on offer to their opponents, starting with Dynamos in tomorrow’s Harare Derby, the Glamour Boys will still finish below Makepekepe on the final standings.

After all, 39 plus 12, the maximum possible number of points DeMbare can get should they win their last four games, will only get them to 51 points — the lowest number of points the Glamour Boys have accrued since 2006.

It’s the first time, in 10 years, that CAPS United will finish the championship race ahead of their biggest city rivals with the Green Machine set to amass their highest points tally since they last won the league title in 2005 with 58 points.

Life has never been this good for the Makepekepe fans in a very, very long time and while tomorrow provides their men with a chance to inflict back-to-back victories over the old enemy, for the first time in 11 years, the bigger picture remains the quest for them to become champions again.

Imagine their last championship came before Facebook, which had been launched in 2004 as a social networking service for the Harvard students, opened itself to the world in September 2006, rising from being just a college project into this technological giant with 1,65 billion monthly active users which generated $18 billion in revenue last year.

Their last championship success story was written five years before WhatsApp was released, can you believe it, especially now that it has become a big part of our lives and has also been transformed into a very profitable business that was acquired for a cool $19,3 billion by Facebook in February 2014.

That last league title, won on a dramatic final Sunday of the 2005 season which saw CAPS United being humiliated 0-3 by Black Rhinos only for their blushes to be saved by Dynamos’ dramatic victory over Masvingo United where the winner, on a rain-swept afternoon at Mucheke was scored by Elliot Matsika in the very final minute of regulation time, came five years before the world got to know of Twitter.

Since then Twitter has since grown to have over 300 million active users, those 140 characters that have become not only fashionable, but also a means of communication where we even assume new identities, like @Chakariboy, and turned itself into big business generating more than $2 billion in revenue last year.

And we have seen Jah Prayzah rise from a rookie artiste who used to play before just a few patrons at Jazz 105 every Wednesday night, who probably didn’t care a thing about what he was singing, to become this superstar who now commands a massive following of fans in this country.

Where we used to virtually ignore him, back then, as he belted out his stuff, unaware he was taking the first baby steps towards greatness, we now sing along every time we hear his hit song, Eliza, being played.

“Mapurisa andipa tiketi

Zvikanzi soja unomhanyirepi?

Kune ka sweet chokoreti, kunge kaZim-Asset

Kagugule pa Internet, izvi hazvidi secret

Akambotamba paMarket akaita mashiripiti

Pakazouya riot

Kukanda tsvimbo mubhasiketi (aya hoye!)

Eliza, iwe dzokorora!

Kutamba kwako kunondifungisa Katarina.”

If you are one of those who miss Katarina, the late musician-cum-actress who was part of the Mukadota Family, one of the greatest stars to grace our television screens when genuine stars like Susan “Amai Rwizi” Chenjerai, the immortal Safirio Madzikatire, Chibhodhoro and Mai Phineas used to light up our evenings, then you probably understand the pain the CAPS United fans have endured, waiting for the rain, and missing the days when Charles Mhlauri turned them into kings on the domestic front.

It looks like a long time ago, of course it is, if you consider that it was also the year we witnessed the Miracle of Istanbul when Liverpool somehow came back from three goals down, in the first half, to score three times in the second half and then defeat AC Milan in a penalty shootout to win their fifth European crown.

That was 2005 and they have even made a blockbuster movie about the events of that night when captain Stevie G and his lieutenants simply refused to buckle under the weight of a blitzkrieg from the Italians and somehow found a way to fight back in a remarkable display of the never-die-spirit that had to be seen to be believed.

THE HARARE DERBY AND THE NORTH WEST DERBY OF ENGLAND

Tomorrow’s Harare Derby, in which the hosts are looking for redemption after more than a decade searching blindly for the league championship, comes just a day before the 197th North/West Derby, the flagship fixture in the English Premiership in which the hosts will also be looking for redemption after more than two decades in a blind search for the championship.

Liverpool, the team whose immense popularity among local football fans is rooted in their partnership with our very own superstar, Bruce Grobbelaar, who starred for them in a career that touched the heavens, will host their bitter North/West rivals Manchester United for the 197th time since their first meeting on April 28, 1894.

Back then, United were known as Newton Heath, and Liverpool triumphed in that first meeting as they won the contest 2-0.

And, just like our Harare Derby, the biggest victory in the North/West Derby also saw the triumphant team scoring seven goals as Liverpool hammered United 7-1 on October 12, 1895.

CAPS United’s seven-goal demolition of Dynamos remains not only a source of pride, for the Green Machine fans, but a reminder of a time when their heroes stood up to be counted, in the game that matters the most to everyone who belongs to the Makepekepe family, and inflicted considerable humiliation on their biggest rivals.

Of course, the Harare Derby — just the North/West Derby in England — is more than just a football match.

And the rivalry, which at times even spills into hatred, is well pronounced and one of the best letters to the Editor I have read in a very long time, was published in our sister newspaper H-Metro this week when a CAPS United fan said he was relieved the country’s leading goal-scorer, Leonard Tsipa, who is making a strong case for winning the Soccer Star of the Year award just three months before his 35th birthday, would not be available for tomorrow’s game.

His argument was that while Tsipa, who has been scoring crucial goals for his team as he refuses to let the damage — both physical and emotional — inflicted by more than 15 years of playing in the trenches of top-flight football, has a very light fuse and tends to become very, very emotional, on such big occasions.

He was concerned that chances were high the hitman would have been sent off in the event the DeMbare defenders find a way to frustrate him, either by marking him out of the game, or mocking him that he is a mudhara, the one Jah Prayzah was singing about in his hit song “Mudhara Vachauya”, who should be sitting on the bench with Lloyd Chitembwe right now.

After all, there is a precedent this season, when Tsipa was sent off in the Battle of the Cities in Bulawayo in what was the turning point of the match, with Highlanders making the most of their numerical advantage and powering their way to a 1-0 victory courtesy of a goal by Bruce Kangwa.

Whether that fan is right, or not, remains to be seen but, even in an era where the current Dynamos team have been an insult to the reputations forged by the likes of George Shaya and Moses Chunga as they helped turn Chazunguza into the most successful, and dominant football club Zimbabwe football has ever known, the Derby should, at least, provide them with a spark to show that even in their worst season in recent memory, they still can fight against the old enemy.

There are things that are simply not acceptable when it comes to Dynamos, like being so ordinary, they are just one of the four teams that have lost to relegation-bound Border Strikers all season with the other ones being Tsholotsho, Harare City and Ngezi Platinum (maybe the Beitbridge side have a liking to beating clubs coached by former DeMbare sons).

To imagine that DeMbare are just one of the two sides who have conceded more than a goal, in one game against Border Strikers all season, hammers home the point of how average these Glamour Boys have been this season.

Especially when one considers that the same Border Strikers have failed to score in 18 of their league games, for them to score twice against DeMbare, as happened that afternoon when Chazunguza, or whatever remains of the beast that used to dominate Zimbabwe football, crashed to that humiliating defeat in Beitbridge, was simply mind-blowing.

In a season in which they have been, at best, a mockery to the high standards that this club represents and, at worst, an insult to its profile, which is known all over the continent, which generations of the country’s finest footballers, including a dribbling wizard so good they named him Digital and a medical student so brilliant they named him The Flying Doctor, helped to build, the least that these Glamour Boys can do to cheer the deflated spirits of their long-suffering fans is to derail CAPS United’s quest for the league championship.

That is what football rivalry is all about.

IN THESE TOUGH TIMES, IT CERTAINLY WASN’T A WISE MOVE

I can’t understand why the CAPS United authorities decided to hike the cheapest price, for fans who want to watch tomorrow’s Harare Derby, by about 66.66 percent from $3 to $5.

Of course, it’s one game that the Green Machine could be hoping to make the most of ticket receipts, but it’s a fact that people simply don’t have that disposable income to play around with anymore and a $2 increase might look minimal, but it is quite significant when one considers that money is tight to come by these days.

Those CAPS fans, who have stood by the team in these difficult times by coming to the stadium to support its cause, will feel they are being punished by their team on an occasion when their side needed to have most of their fans on their side.

The other thing is that Dynamos haven’t been playing well, and the numbers that have been coming to watch their home matches provide testimony to that, and it’s unlikely there could be a dramatic change in terms of numbers now that they are playing CAPS United in a season when they are already out of the running for the league championship.

If I was part of the CAPS United leadership, I would have reduced the entrance fee to even $2, or $1, for the rest of the ground tickets and attract more people, let’s say 50 000, which is better than attracting seven thousand people who can pay $5 each.

But I’m just a football writer crying out for a classic contest between the capital’s two biggest clubs and waiting for another twist in this riveting battle for the league championship.

TO GOD BE THE GLORY!

Come on Warriors!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Khamaldinhooooooooooooooooo!

Text Feedback – 0772545199

WhatsApp Messenger – 0772545199

Email – robsharuko@gmail.com

Skype – sharuko58

Chat with me on Facebook, follow me on Twitter @Chakariboy, interact with me on Viber or read my material in The Southern Times or on www.sportszone.co.zw. The authoritative ZBC weekly television football magazine programme, Game Plan, is back on air and you can interact with me and the legendary Charles “CNN” Mabika every Monday evening.

FOOTBALL CHEERED A NATION BURDENED BY THE NEGATIVITY OF ITS LINKS WITH THE GUPTAS AND THE CHAOS AT ITS UNIVERSITIES
THIS week, two years ago, South Africa was mourning, overwhelmed by the tragic events of the night of October 26, 2014, at the Vosloorus home of singer and actress Kelly Khumalo, where Bafana Bafana captain Senzo Meyiwa was shot and killed.

Even for a country with a shocking high murder rate, with an average of about 50 murders a day, Senzo’s killing sent shockwaves and plunged the nation into a painful soul-searching exercise last seen when reggae icon Lucky Dube was shot dead, again in the ill-fated month of October, in Johannesburg in 2007.

They say the more things change, the more they stay the same. As fate might have it, Senzo was killed in the week leading to the Soweto Derby — that showdown between Orlando Pirates and Kaizer Chiefs — and such was the impact of his death, the match, scheduled for November 1, 2014, had to be postponed.

Wednesday marked the second anniversary of Senzo’s death and just like two years ago, it’s the week leading into the Soweto Derby with Pirates and Chiefs locking horns at the FNB Stadium this afternoon.

Time, though, is a healer.

While the emotional scars inflicted by Senzo’s death still weigh heavily on South Africa’s conscience, with protesters pouring into the streets on Wednesday to demand answers as to why his killers haven’t been captured, football this week provided the country with a rainbow of relief that has been cheering its tormented soul.

Mamelodi Sundowns’ fairy-tale success story in the CAF Champions League, which culminated with the Brazilians transforming themselves into champions of Africa on Sunday night, came just three days before South African football paused, once again, to remember that day when Senzo was swept away from its landscape, by a hail of bullets, into the shadows of history.

A country, which only two years ago was in turmoil as it struggled to come to terms with the murder of its beloved national team captain, united this week in grand celebrations — which destroyed the barriers of fierce inter-club rivalry — as Mzansi generated, and flaunted, a lot of national pride in the success of the Brazilians.

Football, this very beautiful game, flexed its beauty on Sunday night into a rainbow of colours for South Africans to display proudly, in their hour of triumph, as its power cheered the spirits of a nation burdened by the negativity of its association with the Guptas, the darkness of state capture, the sheer madness at its universities and the poisoned waters of its politics still battling to be purified from the legacy of apartheid.

The beauty of the game, thanks to the magical events in Alexandria on Sunday, also cast a powerful ray of light through the darkness of a week which will always be associated with those tragic events of that day in Vosloorus when, as hip hop superstar Sean Combs, also known as Puff Daddy or P Diddy, in his hit song in tribute to the Notorious BIG, “I’ll Be Missing You”, tells us:

In the future, can’t wait to see

If you open up the gates for me

Reminisce some time, THE NIGHT THEY TOOK MY FRIEND

Try to block it out, but it plays again

When it’s real, feelings hard to conceal

Can’t imagine all the pain I feel

Give anything to hear half your breath

I know you still living your life, after death.

For a country where failure in football has become part of their DNA, with Bafana Bafana failing to qualify for the 2017 Nations Cup finals, whose Springboks have lost their way in international rugby, they were not only humiliated by their old enemies the All Blacks, but now even lose to Argentina in their backyard, whose cricketers continue to choke on the big stage, in collective failure that forced the Sports Minister to coin the famous phrase “A BUNCH OF LOSERS”, Sundowns’ heroics were from another planet.

You really don’t need to be a Sundowns fan to appreciate the beauty of their fairy-tale, a success story written in stars that have cast a light of joy across the entire Southern African region and the Rainbow Nation needs to be given credit for refusing to be divided by inter-club rivalries to unite and have the presence of mind to see the bigger picture of what the Brazilians’ triumph represented for their nation.

When Sundowns stepped into the ring for the final showdown against five-time champions Zamalek, somehow having risen from the debris of being knocked out in the second round by AS Vita, before the Congolese disqualification provided them with a lifeline, they had long ceased to be fighting their club’s battle, but were now fighting a battle for their country and also their region.

When the Brazilians confronted Zamalek in that final showdown, somehow having dusted themselves from the humiliation of being knocked out of the second-tier Confederation Cup, where they had dropped after the defeat to AS Vita, by obscure Ghanaian side Medeama SC, they had long ceased to be fighting their own battle, but were now fighting for 50 million South Africans and more than 180 million who call this southern tip of the world home.

And, boy oh boy, they delivered in style.

If this was the final act to provide legendary Brazilian World Cup winning captain Carlos Alberto, who died at the age of 72 this week, with a reminder of the heights which, those who remain bewitched by the magic his immortal team delivered in the Mexican sunshine in 1970 (to such an extent they even copy the kit they used in that triumph), dream of scaling in their pursuit of the greatness which those Brazilians represented, then it was a fitting farewell to the great man.

IT’s A STUNNING SUCCESS STORY THAT ALSO BELONGS TO US

As South African partied this week, some of us who partied with them feel we have a right to do so, because we believe we had a huge stake in the investment that finally yielded this massive dividend and while this is a Mzansi triumph, you can’t resist the feeling that it also, in a way, belongs to us.

After all, our boy from Mufakose, the neighbourhood of football legends, played a very influential role in this Sundowns’ march to greatness, scoring three goals along the way, the best goal-return by a Sundowns player in this campaign.

Chances are that this Sundowns’ success story would not have come true had the injury that forced Khama out of the preliminary round, first leg tie against Chicken Inn at Barbourfields, which the South Africans lost 0-1, persisted and ruled him out of the second leg in Pretoria.

But, once he had recovered to take his place, everything fell into place and after he flighted the ball beyond the Gamecocks’ defence for his teammate to head home and then with 90 minutes on the clock and the tie delicately balanced at 1-1, he suddenly burst into the danger area, a trademark sudden change of pace creating acres of space ahead of him, a movement pregnant with such beauty he looked more of a ballerina dancer than a footballer, gliding his way towards goal.

One-and-half hours of a fierce contest, which had tested both sides to the limit, was drawing towards a close and in that showdown Khama’s diminutive frame — not 100 percent fit by the way — had taken a battering from his countrymen, with the forward having been hit from the left, from the right, from the back and from the front.

And where mere mortals would have long been consumed by the intensity of the battle, lost the energy to keep fighting on, let alone run at levels we had seen at the beginning when freshness was everywhere, Khama was suddenly speeding off at lightning pace, as if he had just been introduced into this epic fight as a last-minute replacement.

He was past the first Chicken Inn defender before he even knew what was happening and as he cleared that hurdle, it became apparent that danger was now looming, a combination of pace and control having created a window of hope for the Brazilians, the beauty encrypted in the swagger of his movement, the mastery of the an artist who believed in himself and his God-given skills.

Poor Passmore Bernard, already in the shadow of the movement as the attack was about to enter the penalty box, clipped Khama from the back and the referee, certainly not standing in a position that gave him the authority to make a critical decision, pointed to the spot even though television replays, showed the initial contact had happened just outside the box.

Katlego Mashego converted the penalty and Sundowns survived to fight another day in the Champions League, thanks to the defining contribution of Khama, who would then go on to score three goals and become his team’s most potent weapon in the Brazilians’ march to the Promised Land.

It should have been four goals, actually, but his best of this Champions League campaign was lost in the storm of that expulsion of Algerian side ES Setif in the wake of the crowd trouble that erupted after Sundowns beat them 2-0 in their backyard with Khama scoring a wonder goal just after the hour mark.

Picking a pass from Keegan Dolly, just after the halfway line on the left channel, he flicked the ball with his left foot, fooling his marker as if he was about to storm down that left side, then eliminated another defender, beat a third defender, all without breaking stride and then firing home via the near post.

Class, absolute class and it’s a pity that goal — just like the result of that match — was washed away by the expulsion of that Algerian side and the nullification of Sundowns’ victory.

Oh, by the way, Cuthbert Malajila, also played his part in this Sundowns’ triumph before he moved to Bidvest Wits, the immortal Peter Ndlovu is the team manager and we also helped the Brazilians, two years ago, when they launched their ambitious drive to conquer Africa, by offering them camping facilities — which Pitso said toughed his men to face the challenges of playing on the continent — when they came here and played Highlanders, CAPS United and Dynamos.

Of course, what will cheer our spirits even more is seeing one of our clubs conquer the continent and if Chicken Inn, rookies in the Champions League, beat Sundowns at Barbourfields before a questionable penalty knocked them out in Pretoria, then, surely, in terms of quality, we can’t say we are too far off the pace.

It’s the organisation that we lack and once we get that right, who knows?

CURSING MBWANDO WHEN PITSO IS EVEN COURTING BRA SHAKES

Last week, ahead of the Battle of Alexandria, Pitso Mosimane invited Bafana Bafana coach Shakes Mashaba to come and help him and his team, clear the final hurdle with the national team gaffer even addressing the Sundowns players and giving Pitso technical and tactical tips.

Even though Sundowns had won the first leg 3-0 and beaten Zamalek home and away in their Group games, Pitso still felt that, to clear the final hurdle in Egypt, he needed a helping hand from someone who could offer an alternative opinion and add value to their technical masterplan.

Mashaba actually travelled to Alexandria, as part of the official Sundowns delegation, was there at their training sessions taking down notes and when victory was secured, we saw him celebrating with the team in their dressing room.

That Pitso and Shakes had publicly clashed this year, over the Sundowns players in Bafana Bafana, didn’t matter and was buried for the cause of their nation.

That’s what is called unity of purpose, because the assignment in Egypt had long evolved from just being a Sundowns baby into a national cause and you have to give credit to Pitso for putting the interests of his club and country, ahead of personal glory, after realising he needed a helping hand for the final push.

Of course, the glory for Sundowns’ triumph is all for Pitso because he is the man who masterminded this success story from day one and we haven’t even heard Shakes claiming he should be given any credit for the success.

Against that background, I can’t understand all the criticism that George Mbwando is getting for daring to suggest he could go on a spying mission, for his country, to get data on the Tunisian, Algerian and Senegalese players who are playing in Europe, note their strengths and weaknesses and pass that vital information to Warriors coach Callisto Pasuwa.

Mbwando is a holder of a UEFA coaching badge and having spent about 20 years exposed to football in Europe, knows a thing or two about how football has evolved into this scientific sport where analysis of the data of the opposition is as important as getting the right players to field in your team.

For us to then insult him, asking where he was when we were playing Malawi, who don’t have high-profile players in Europe, when we were playing Swaziland, who don’t have players in Europe, is certainly way off the mark. Those who have been to Europe know that one doesn’t need a fortune to go all over the place on holiday, airfares are cheap, you can do it by train because this isn’t as huge a continent as Africa and knowing George he doesn’t need an attachment, to help his country, for his holiday stuff.

Yes, he criticised Musona when he wasn’t flexing his muscles to stay in Europe because he believed that is where his talent belonged, not in South Africa and — at that stage of his career — the Smiling Assassin needed someone who could be brutally frank with him and that’s why he is now back in Europe. George isn’t saying he wants to be part of the Warriors’ coaching staff, he made that very, very clear.

When the Warriors qualified for the 2006 Nations Cup finals, Charles Mhlauri realised he needed a European coach to help him and recruited a Dutchman Dick De Boer because, in his words, “the analysis, deliberations and plans have to be rich in detail if we are to make better decisions (because) we are still far behind in closing the gap with Europe.”

Mhlauri’s reward was that his team came within just one goal, which we actually scored and was disallowed under questionable circumstances, of qualifying for the quarter-finals after beating a World Cup-bound Ghana in the Group of Death.

But, then, worry not George Boy, that’s what we are as a nation mate and rather than keep praising the Dynamos team of ’98 for the miracle they performed to reach the Champions League final, we even mock them for failing to win it saying football doesn’t remember those who come second.

TO GOD BE THE GLORY!

Come on Warriors!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Khamaldinhoooooooooooooooo!

Text Feedback – 0772545199

WhatsApp Messenger – 0772545199

Email – robsharuko@gmail.com

Skype – sharuko58

Chat with me on Facebook, follow me on Twitter @Chakariboy, interact with me on Viber or read my material in The Southern Times or on www.sportszone.co.zw. The authoritative ZBC weekly television football magazine programme, Game Plan, is back on air and you can interact with me and the legendary Charles “CNN” Mabika every Monday evening.

SHARUKO ON SATURDAY
IF you are an underdog, like our beloved Warriors, a neutral fascinated by the romance of a Cinderella tale or a fan of a team burdened by years of underachievement to the extent failure has become part of the DNA of that love affair, you certainly can’t resist the magic of the year 2016.

Leicester City defying 5000-1 odds this year to become champions of English football, the Cronulla Sharks ending 50 years of waiting to become Australian rugby league champions, the Western Bulldogs overcoming the weight of 62-years of failure and a raft of injuries to win the Aussie Rules football championship.

Golfer Danny Willet almost missing the Masters to be with his wife in England as they expected their first child, arriving at Augusta National at the last minute, battered by jet lag and somehow winning this year’s first golf Major title, after favourite Jordan Spieth self-destructed in the final stretch, including giving up six shots in four holes.

Or all the four golf Major championships this year, the Masters (won by Willet), the US Open (won by Dustin Johnson), the British Open (won by Henrik Stenson) and the US PGA (won by Jimmy Walker), all being won by golfers winning their first Major championship.

And, of course, the United States golfers this year ending eight years of European dominance to win the Ryder Cup, only their second triumph since the turn of the millennium.

This week, tens of thousands of people poured onto the streets of Bangladesh cities to celebrate the country’s FIRST victory over England in a Test match, ending a nine-match losing streak at the hands of the English since they began playing against each other in the longer format of the game.

Angelique Kerber and Garbin Muguruza both won their first Grand Slam titles in tennis this year and their breakthrough victories both coming at the expense of American superstar Serena Williams at the Australian and French Open.

The Cleveland Cavaliers stormed back from a 1-3 deficit, in the NBA finals, to win the last three games to beat defending champions Golden State Warriors for the franchise’s first basketball title in history and in the process, ending the city’s 52-year wait for a major sporting title across all disciplines with an estimated 1,3 million people attending the Cavs’ trophy parade.

But, the greatest tale of them all came on Wednesday night in the United States, a country that has been poisoned by the toxicity of the politics of a deeply divisive Presidential election race, when the Cubs ended 108 years of waiting to win baseball’s World Series after a dramatic Game Seven triumph over the Cleveland Indians.

If you are not a baseball fan and I know many of you who read this blog are football fanatics, don’t worry, this isn’t really about that game which looks like raka-raka, which we used to play as kids in our years of innocence.

In case you don’t know, a baseball has 108 stitches and for the Cubs, it took exactly 108 years to win the World Series.

It’s just a fascinating story of a sporting franchise finally winning the World Series after 108 years that had tested the love, support and patience of its fans in a city whose basketball team, the Chicago Bulls, have fallen from the grace of winning six NBA titles, thanks to the brilliance of Michael Jordan, with the Bulls’ last title coming in 1998.

But, it all ended on Wednesday night as the Cubs became the first team to overturn a 1-3 deficit in the World Series since 1985.

CURSE OF THE BILLY GOAT AND THAT VERY FRIGHTENING TWEET

As the Cubs waited, for more than a century, for the championship that seemingly would never come, some people even claimed the club was bewitched by the Curse of the Billy Goat.

Well, back in 1945, Billy Goat Tarven owner William Sianis was asked to leave the Cubs’ home ground, Wrigley Field, during Game 4 of that year’s World Series because other fans were unhappy with the odour of his pet goat which he used to bring as his companion to the ground.

Outraged by his treatment by the club he loved and rejection by his fellow fans, Sianis told them “THEM CLUBS, THEY AREN’T GONNA WIN NO MORE,” and they didn’t only lose that 1945 World Series to the Detroit Tigers, but they didn’t win another championship again, despite coming close on a number of occasions, until they ended that miserable run this year.

A number of fans and seasoned commentators, actually blamed it on the Curse of the Billy Goat for the club’s misery.

And, when it comes to the Cubs, the script is never ordinary and some will even say the team’s success story, after 108 years, was something written in the stars and, two years ago, someone who goes by the Twitter name @RayFanGio predicted on Twitter that the Cubs will finally win the World Series this year.

He, assuming he was male, even correctly predicted the Cubs will play the Indians in the final.

Interestingly, his prediction also correctly predicted the events that unfolded on Wednesday night — the fact that this World Series showdown would go into a Game Seven decider, the Cleveland comeback, the rain delay and the extra inning.

“2016 WORLD SERIES. CUBS vs INDIANS,” the tweet read. “AND THEN THE WORLD WILL END WITH THE SCORE TIED IN GAME SEVEN IN EXTRA INNINGS #APOCALYPSE.”

As the extra-ordinary events of Wednesday night unfolded, that tweet was re-tweeted more than 150 000 times with a huge global constituency even fearing the world would come to an end.

Of course, the world didn’t end.

But, just hold on, it’s worth noting that the last time the Cubs won the World Series in 1908, like they did on Wednesday night, America was electing its President and with incumbent Theodore Roosevelt having declined to run for a third term before the two-term limit came into effect, it paved the way for the nomination of eventual winner William Howard Taft.

Hillary Clinton and her supporters will be hoping the Cubs’ triumph isn’t a bad omen given that the last time the club won the World Series, a Republican won the battle to the White House.

Just hours after the Cubs sealed their triumph, United States President Barack Obama told a campaign rally in North Carolina that the future of the world was at risk if Donald Trump wins the race to the White House next week.

“The fate of the world is teetering,” he said. “And you, North Carolina, are going to have to make sure that we push it in the right direction.”

And Trump believes a Clinton victory will start World War III which, effectively, will mean the end of the world as we know it.

“You’re going to end up in World War III over Syria if we listen to Hillary Clinton,” Trump told his supporters. “You’re not fighting Syria any more — you’re fighting Syria, Russia and Iran, all right?”

Well, so, either way, it appears, that frightening tweet about the Cubs winning baseball’s World Series this year, after 108 years (which has come to pass), beating the Indians (which has come to pass), in Game Seven of the contest (which has come to pass), in an extra innings (which has come to pass), could also be right about its predictions that this is apocalyptic and the world will soon come to an end.

WHY THE CUBS REMIND ME OF MY BELOVED WARRIORS

The Cubs fans, just like those who support the Warriors, have had very little to celebrate for a long time, but incredibly, that hasn’t destroyed the special bond that exists between the supporters and their beloved team and the more the two teams have under-achieved, it appears, the stronger the bond has become.

For how do you explain that a Cubs team, which didn’t win a World Series title for 108 years, still had the drawing power to bring in not fewer than 32 000 fans for their home games, on average, since 1997, standing toe-to-toe, in terms of a support base with giants and serial winners like the New York Yankees, Dodgers and the Cardinals?

How do you explain the outpouring of support for the Warriors, given their history of under-achievement with only two Nations Cup finals appearances in 36 years and a third one on the way, they still draw more than 40 000 fans, on average, to their home matches and, at one stage, used to regularly fill the 60 000 capacity National Sports Stadium and in terms of numbers who come to the ground, were the best supported team on the continent?

The Cubs, given their popularity, are the only major baseball team with a long waiting list of fans who want to buy season tickets — even when they have been winning nothing for over a century — and given the huge demand, the club’s leadership have been cashing in on that and at about $51,33, they are the most expensive tickets in the league where the average is $20.

The Warriors’ fans still pay a little fortune, usually $5 for the cheapest ticket and as much as $50 to $100 for the VVIP tickets, to watch a team that usually fails to deliver, on the international front and has only two Nations Cup appearances and a third one on the way, to show for their troubles.

Our neighbours in South Africa — whose Bafana Bafana won the Nations Cup once, have come second once, come third once and have played at the World Cup finals three times — were outraged when the cheapest ticket was pegged at R80, about $4,70 and voted with their pockets by not going to watch the team in numbers.

The Cubs, interestingly, were the most profitable team in major league baseball four years ago, earning $32 million, even when that season they finished last with 101 losses.

The Warriors might not be the richest team on the continent, let alone in the region and that they were expelled from the 2018 World Cup qualifiers because their leaders failed to pay about $60 000 needed to offset the debt owed to former coach Valinhos illustrates their financial challenges, but what they lack in financial weight they make up for it in the boundless passion they generate among the people who believe in them.

And, in the year when perennial under-achievers like the Cubs and lightweights like Iceland have flexed their muscles, the Warriors have ended 10 years of waiting for a place at the Nations Cup finals and if this is the season of the underdogs, then we don’t have anything to fear when we take on the ultimate heavyweights — Algeria, Senegal and Tunisia — in Gabon.

The winds of change have swept across sport’s landscape, the Mighty Warriors played at the Olympics for the first time, why then should we tremble simply because we are about to take on the giants of African football?

Little Iceland didn’t and a country with just about 330 000 people, was rewarded with a victory over England and a place in the quarter-finals of Euro 2016, Portugal — the poorest country in Western Europe — didn’t and after years of under-achievement, they were rewarded with success at Euro 2016, even without Cristiano Ronaldo in the final against France and the Cubs didn’t and even after 108 years, they finally won the World Series.

The Cubs exorcised the curse of Billy the Goat and while Sunday Chidzambwa and Peter Ndlovu exorcised Ben Kouffie’s curse that, even if we hire a coach from the moon we would never succeed, by qualifying for the Nations Cup finals in 2003 and everywhere we cast our eyes, we can see stories — like the Cubs’ fairytale — which should provide us with the inspiration to take on the Goliaths of African football.

After all, Highlanders beat Dynamos in the league for the first time in 10 years and for good measure, completed a double over them, CAPS United beat the Glamour Boys in the league for the first time in seven years, a player about to turn 35 could be crowned Soccer Star of the Year and after 11 years of waiting, the Green Machine could be champions again.

TO GOD BE THE GLORY!

Come on Warriors!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Khamaldinhoooooooooooooooo!

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SHARUKO ON SATURDAY 

LAST week on Tuesday, my marriage with this newspaper entered its 25th year, a Silver Jubilee of an adventure pregnant with trials and tribulations, in a profession that has always been my passion from the moment it dawned on me that one good day I would have to work for my living.They say time flies, of course it does, because it seems just like yesterday when I first arrived in this newsroom on November 1, 1992, as a fresh-faced recruit from the journalism school to join a very powerful sports desk headed by Jahoor Omar, the finest all-round Zimbabwean sports journalist of our time, whose lieutenants included Sam Marisa, Collin Matiza and Phillip Magwaza.

Along the way we lost Marisa and Magwaza, who both died in the prime of their lives, dear colleagues whose spiritual presence will always be felt around our closely-knit sports desk even when death took away their physical frames away from us.

We also lost Lovemore Musharavati, a regular correspondent for our desk who at times appeared to be a man born to make us laugh, always full of life and jokes, who called himself my elder brother simply because he was from Kadoma and I had grown up just 30km away in the goldfields of my beloved Chakari.

From the original Fab Five, as we called ourselves on the occasions we broke a big story that drove the newspaper sales and made all of us proud the following morning Jahoor would call us into his little glass office for a share of his tea, delivered by Sekuru Thomas, who has since gone into retirement, only two of us — Collin and myself — remain on the desk.

The typewriters have long been replaced by laptops and new faces have come and gone. ZIFA are looking for the seventh secretary-general to lead their secretariat in the past two-and-a-half decades with Ndumiso Gumede (twice), Charles Nhemachena, Cliff Mcllwaine, Edgar Rogers, Henrietta Rushwaya and Jonathan Mashingaidze (twice), having occupied the hot seat.

Five ZIFA presidents — Trevor Carelse-Juul, Leo Mugabe, Vincent Pamire, Wellington Nyatanga and Cuthbert Dube — have come and gone, during the same period and I arrived here just about the time when Ghanaian coach Ben Kouffie told this country, after being fired from his job as the head of the Warriors’ technical staff, that even if we hired a coach from the moon, Zimbabwe would never make it to the finals of a major international tournament.

It became known as the Kouffie Curse and the more the Warriors seemingly perfected the art of collapsing at the final hurdle, always so near yet so far away from the green fields of the Promised Land, the more the millions of their fans and leaders, began to believe in Kouffie to such an extent that, on one occasion, an offering was made to the football gods with an animal being slaughtered at the National Sports Stadium in a cleansing ceremony.

Of course, Sunday Chidzambwa and Peter Ndlovu combined in 2003 to exorcise that ghost of failure which had stalked us for more than two decades, as they led from the front in sealing our maiden appearance at the Nations Cup finals and that the successful qualifiers had started in 2002, on the 10th anniversary of my arrival on this desk, used to cheer my spirits no end.

Of course, we were not the only ones who used to curse fate, who used to feel ours was a story which would always end in tears, no matter how we tried, and only last week — as I entered the Silver Jubilee of my marriage with this newspaper — we saw the seventh largest gathering of people in history as five million Chicago Cubs fans thronged the city’s lakefront to celebrate a milestone achievement.

One journalist even described them as “five million of the most patient humans in the world,” a unique group of people whose love and belief in their beloved team could not be shaken, let alone broken, by over a century of a failed search for baseball’s ultimate trophy, the World Series, which the Cubs won two weeks ago after 108 years.

I dealt with the Cubs’ heart-warming tale in detail on this blog last week and ahead of the elections for the 45th President of the United States on Tuesday, I also looked at the possible coincidence between the Chicago team’s success and the person who was likely to win the right to stay in the White House.

“IT’S WORTH NOTING THAT THE LAST TIME THE CUBS WON THE WORLD SERIES IN 1908, LIKE THEY DID ON WEDNESDAY NIGHT, AMERICA WAS ELECTING ITS PRESIDENT AND, WITH INCUMBENT THEODORE ROOSEVELT HAVING DECLINED TO RUN FOR A THIRD TERM BEFORE THE TWO-TERM LIMIT CAME INTO EFFECT, IT PAVED THE WAY FOR THE NOMINATION OF EVENTUAL WINNER WILLIAM HOWARD TAFT,” I wrote in last week’s edition.

“HILLARY CLINTON AND HER SUPPORTERS WILL BE HOPING THE CUBS’ TRIUMPH ISN’T A BAD OMEN GIVEN THAT THE LAST TIME THE CLUB WON THE WORLD SERIES, A REPUBLICAN WON THE BATTLE TO THE WHITE HOUSE.”

Of course, we now know, don’t we, that a Republican outsider, Donald Trump, beat Clinton in the battle for the White House this week in — just like the Cubs’ sensational curse-breaking-come-from-behind triumph in which they erased a 1-3 deficit in the final to be champions — one of the biggest upsets in the race to become US President.

Some readers have, once again, been calling me Prophet Sharuko — just like they did when I warned on this blog that Sam Allardyce’s blasphemy would come back to haunt him and he was unlikely to last in his dream job as the manager of the England national football team — with the coach being sacked less than three months after his appointment.

Of course, I’m not a prophet, it’s a narrative I have emphasised again and again, saying that my good brother Walter Magaya is the one who is a prophet, but some guys have kept suggesting that I’m a prophet with even one guy saying this week that I should also start my church.

No buddie, I’m just a sports journalist!

BASEBALL IN AMERICA HAS A FUNNY WAY OF PREDICTING THE PRESIDENCY

Nigerian prophet TB Joshua has been getting a lot of criticism that he got it wrong in his prediction that Clinton would win the race, but maybe, the televangelist got it right that the lady was going to win the popular vote, which she is set to, even though the electoral college votes are what matter and have swept Trump to the White House.

Clinton might end with more than 200 000 votes more than Trump, but the electoral college system, whose roots are in America’s dark past of slavery, is what matters and for only the fourth time in the history of these elections, the person who received fewer number of votes will be unveiled as President.

Al Gore won 539 000 more votes than George W. Bush in 2000, but lost the Presidency, after that controversial intervention of the Florida electoral votes, in 1888 Benjamin Harrison was elected US President even though Grover Cleveland had won more votes and in 1876 Samuel Tilden beat Rutherford B. Hayes, in the popular vote, but lost the Presidency in the complication of what is known as the Compromise of 1877.

But, surely, one doesn’t need to be a prophet, to be blessed — once in a while — to see things that will probably happen in the future.

After all, Michael Lee, an American high school student had a dream, back in 1993, of the Cubs ending their long wait for the World Series by winning the 2016 championship he actually inscribed it on his yearbook, back then, with the worlds “CHICAGO CUBS, 2016 WORLD CHAMPIONS, YOU HEARD IT FIRST HERE”, under his photo in a framed picture.

And Nate Silver, statistician and editor-in-chief of FiveThirtyEight, on May 11 this year tweeted, “REMINDER: CUBS WILL WIN THE WORLD SERIES AND, IN EXCHANGE, PRESIDENT TRUMP WILL BE ELECTED EIGHT DAYS LATER.”

Even though Chicago, the Cubs base and the hometown of President Barack Obama, is traditionally a Democratic city, the family that owns the team — Joe and Marlene Rickets — are Trump supporters and donated a cool $1 million into his campaign.

When the baseball World Series goes to a Game Seven, as was the case this year when the Cubs won the title for the first time in 108 years and the team which plays in the American League wins, as happened this year given the Cubs play in the American League, the Republican nominee wins the vote for the White House.

If the National League team wins, the Democratic nominee wins the White House race, but unfortunately for Clinton and company, the Cleveland Indians, the finalists from the National League this year, lost to the Chicago Cubs and the die, even for the politics, had been cast.

In 1924, the American League team Washington Senators, just like the Cubs, won the World Series and a Republican Calvin Coolidge was elected US President; in 1940, the National League team Cincinnati Reds won the World Series and a Democrat, Franklin Roosevelt was elected US President; in 1952, the American League side New York Yankees won the World Series and a Republican, Dwight Eisenhower, was elected US President; in 1956, the Yankees again won the World Series and Eisenhower was re-elected.

In 1960, the National League team, Pittsburgh Pirates, won the World Series and a Democrat, JF Kennedy won the US Presidency; in 1964 another National League side, St Louis Cardinals, won the World Series and another Democrat, Lyndon Johnson, won the US Presidency; in 1968, an American League team, the Detroit Tigers, won the World Series and a Republican, Richard Nixon, was elected US President while in 1972, another American League side, Oakland Athletics, won the World Series and Nixon, a Republican, was re-elected President.

COME ON GUYS, JUST ADMIT IT, IT’S THE SEASON OF THE UNDERDOGS

Donald Trump was born just a few months after Billy Sianis, the Cubs’ fan who was ejected from Wrigley Park, his club’s home ground, during the 1945 World Series, because some other fans didn’t like the smell of his pet goat, named Murphy and he responded by telling them, “THEM CUBS, THEY AIN’T GONNA WIN NO MORE,” a curse that lasted until this year.

From 1945 to last year, as the Cubs staggered in the darkness with their fans and officials being weighed down by The Curse of the Billy Goat, 42 players who played for the team went on to win the World Series while playing for other clubs.

This year, the Cubs exorcised the so-called 71-year curse, ending 108 years of waiting for the World Series, and just a week after their triumph, another rank outsider, Trump, born just a few months after Sianis cursed them, was elected US President in a stunning victory that shocked the world.

Baseball is to the Americans what football is to us and those who are being shocked by the events dominating United States politics need to reflect on a sporting year that has predominantly been for the rank underdogs, from Leicester City defying 5 000-1 odds to become champions of English football to Ngezi Platinum, newboys in the domestic Premiership, going to Barbourfields to knock out Highlanders in the semi-finals of the Chibuku Super Cup and then comprehensively beating FC Platinum 3-1 in the final last Saturday.

What about Mamelodi Sundowns, being knocked out of the CAF Champions League by AS Vita of Congo in the second round and then dropping into the second-tier Confederation Cup where they were also beaten, at the first hurdle, by an obscure Ghanaian side Medeama, only for the Brazilians to be recalled into the Champions League because Vita had been expelled for using an ineligible player in a game against Tanzanian side Mafunzo.

Then, somehow, against all the odds, Sundowns making full use of their reprieve to win their group, including winning games in Algeria and Egypt when they had failed, earlier, to win in Bulawayo and Kinshasa and then defeating five-time champions Zamalek to be crowned kings of African football for the first time in their history.

Our beloved Warriors, somehow defying the odds to arrive in Malawi, after a tortuous overnight bus trip, just hours before their opening 2017 Nations Cup finals qualifier against the Flames and beating their hosts in their backyard, to start a run that would see them seal their qualification for a place at AFCON finals, for the first time in a decade, with a game to spare.

Swaziland, of all teams, going to Morocco and beating Guinea in the same Nations Cup qualifiers and then, to show that victory wasn’t a fluke, beating the West Africans again in Mbabane.

Uganda, the country we beat 2-0 in a friendly recently, qualifying for their first Nations Cup finals since 1978 and their star goalkeeper, Dennis Onyango, just like his Sundowns teammate Khama Billiat, being nominated for the African Player of the Year.

Maybe next weekend, or the week after, we will know the winners of the domestic Premiership and it’s more than likely to be a team that hasn’t won it in 11 years, CAPS United, or one that hasn’t won it in 10, Highlanders, or one that hasn’t won it at all, FC Platinum, who — like the Cubs — are burdened by the weight of history as no club from outside Harare or Bulawayo has been crowned champions in 50 years.

That’s a Golden Jubilee, twice the number of years I’ve been married to this company, but in the season of the underdogs, who am I to say this isn’t the year for that jinx to be broken?

Even at next year’s 2017 Nations Cup finals?

TO GOD BE THE GLORY!

Come on Warriors!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Khamaldinhoooooooooooooooo!

Text Feedback — 0772545199

WhatsApp Messenger -0772545199

Email — robsharuko@gmail.com

Skype — sharuko58

Chat with me on Facebook, follow me on Twitter @Chakariboy, interact with me on Viber or read my material in The Southern Times or on www.sportszone.co.zw. The authoritative ZBC weekly television football magazine programme, Game Plan, is back on air and you can interact with me and the legendary Charles “CNN” Mabika every Monday evening.

Sharuko on Saturday
IT hasn’t been a very good week for the media, what with our colleagues at Soccer Laduma in South Africa being forced to make a humiliating public apology to Kaizer Chiefs by the Press Council, for publishing a fake interview involving Amakhosi midfielder Lucky Baloyi, last year.

Donald Trump has also been tweeting again, of course, hitting out the American media, including describing the people at the iconic The New York Times, as fools, for being fiercely and openly opposed to his candidature for the United States Presidency.

The New York Times led the way in the Trump bashing, mocking his fitness for the job and describing his candidature as a sickening joke, a narrative that was a common feature in the mainstream media outlets of the United States, including CNN and running opinion polls which favoured Hillary Clinton in the race.

That the bulk of the mainstream American media was against Trump’s candidature is very clear and that they have been left nursing their bruises, in the wake of the billionaire’s stunning victory, is there for everyone to see.

But it’s The New York Times, widely considered, within the American media industry, as the “national newspaper of record”, whose circulation of 1 379 806 copies daily makes it the largest circulating among metropolitan newspapers in the United States, with a leading 117 Pulitzer Prizes and which has been published since September 18, 1851, which has taken most of the battering.

This week, the publisher of the newspaper even took the extraordinary step of writing out to subscribers appealing to them to stick with the paper, as many cancelled their subscriptions, in the wake of Trump’s victory.

And Trump, being Trump, seized on it.

“Wow, the @nytimes is losing thousands of subscribers because of their very poor and highly inaccurate coverage of the ‘Trump phenomena’,” the US President-elect tweeted this week before adding, “The @nytimes sent a letter to their subscribers apologising for their BAD coverage of me, @nytimes is just upset that they looked like fools in their coverage of me.”

And, he isn’t the only one who is taking a dig at The New York Times.

Columnist Michael Goodwin, writing in the New York Post, noted that “The Gray Lady (The New York Times) feels the agony of political defeat — in her reputation and in her wallet. After taking a beating almost as brutal as Hillary Clinton’s, The New York Times on Friday made an extraordinary appeal to its readers to stand by her.

“The publisher’s letter to subscribers was part apology and part defence of its campaign coverage. Times publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr. admitted the paper failed to appreciate Donald Trump’s appeal.

“But bad or sloppy journalism doesn’t fully capture the Times’ sins. Not after it announced that it was breaking its rules of coverage because Trump didn’t deserve fairness. Having grown up at the Times, I am pained by its decline. More troubling, as the flagship of American journalism, it is giving all reporters a black eye. Its standards were the source of its credibility, and eliminating them has made it less than ordinary.”

What’s all this to do with what is supposed to a football blog, you might rightly ask?

Great question, indeed!

Well, I thought about The New York Times this week, as I looked at the coverage of our Mighty Warriors, the alarm bells that were ringing in the local media, especially related to their trip to Cameroon, amid concerns in some sections that the team was in danger of failing to make the trip the 2016 AFCON Women championships, .

I said, but the tournament only gets underway today, why then were we all seemingly in such panic mode on Monday and Tuesday and my colleague said but the team needs to acclimatise in Cameroon, of course they do, but isn’t this the same country they visited on their last trip on the continent, when we beat the West Africans on our way to the Olympic Games.

Back then, in October last year when ZIFA were under another leadership, the Mighty Warriors only left for Cameroon, for the final qualifier of their Olympic Games, on the eve of the match after the Association failed to raise funds for the trip with Sports Minister, Makhosini Hlongwane, only coming in at the last-minute to mobilise funds and bankroll the trip.

Somehow, we didn’t cry, as loud as we did this week, that the team was in danger of failing to fulfil that match, which we lost 1-2, before winning 1-0 here, even though that assignment, for the Olympic Games where we had a chance of playing the best nations in the world for the first time, was bigger than the AFCON women finals where we are playing for the fourth time and at the turn of the millennium, we even finished fourth.

Three months earlier, our Mighty Warriors had even failed to travel to Cote d’Ivoire, for an earlier Olympic Games qualifier, with the then ZIFA leadership failing to bankroll their trip, but we didn’t hear the kind of hysterical backlash that we saw this week when the team was still in Harare in the week — about five days before their match in Cameroon today.

WHAT ABOUT OUR NIGERIAN COUNTERPARTS THEN?

On Tuesday, I then checked my Nigerian counterparts and they told me the defending champions, who have won this tournament seven times, were only leaving for Cameroon on Wednesday, the same day the Mighty Warriors also left for their adventure, with the Falcons of Nigeria led by a coach who hasn’t been paid his salary for eight months.

At least, the players had been paid, for qualifying for the Cameroon finals, but just 10 000 naira for each player, which translates to about US$33, by the Nigeria Football Federation.

“Hopefully, our financial situation will improve very soon and we will be able to practically demonstrate how much we treasure you”, Nigeria Football Federation president Amaju Pinnick told the players as they departed for Cameroon.

Now, if the seven-time champions are being paid US$33 each, for qualifying for the tournament, haven’t been paid for their Olympic Games qualifiers and their coach hasn’t been paid for eight months and the president of the Nigeria Football Federation — the game’s governing body in the most powerful economy on the continent — concedes their financial situation is very bad, who are we to try and pretend we are sitting on a beach of gold, diamonds and oil and we are as rich as Qatar, Luxembourg, Singapore, Kuwait and Brunei, the five richest countries in the world today?

Why do we suddenly draw blinkers and try and shield our eyes from the reality we are being led by a football body that is being choked by a US$7 million debt, which they inherited from the previous group of clowns-disguised-as-football-leaders and keep telling ourselves everything should flow smoothly in such a crippling environment?

I’m not saying that we should be comfortable with mediocrity, when we are planning for such big tournaments simply because the Nigerians, probably have a sickening habit of poor planning yet they always do well, but I am saying there is also need for us to be realistic of the challenges, especially financial, which are crippling our football in most parts of the continent.

For us to suddenly expect everything to flow smoothly, when we are carrying a heavy burden of a $7 million debt that no one knows how it came about, except those who are in charge of our game in the five years leading to their mandate being revoked last year, is stretching our dreams too far and the media has a big role to play.

We seem to have forgotten, very quickly, that we are the same country that failed to send our Under-17s to fulfil a second leg of their African Youth Championships qualifier in Angola, just across the Namibian border, four years ago and that ZIFA leadership, which was operating in an economic environment that was in better shape than where we are today, escaped the pummelling they deserved.

And they also failed to send our Under-20 team to fulfil the second leg of their African Under-20 Championships in Brazzaville, Congo, in the same year and still that ZIFA leadership escaped without the kind of basking that we have seen being inflicted on the current leadership.

They could even afford to fail to pay just $60 000, owed to Valinhos, which led to our expulsion from the World Cup, for the first time in our history and still escape without the kind of bashing that we have seen being inflicted on those who replaced them even when these guys, in just under a month or so, managed to ensure that we will play in the 2022 World Cup by paying Tom Saintfiet $160 000.

Those who destroyed our 2018 World Cup dreams have long left the scene, to enjoy their retirement packages, leaving us with a US$7 million debt to deal with, and it’s all good.

And, by the way, Banyana Banyana, who have all the sponsors in the world, only left for Morocco on Tuesday.

We should be directing our anger at CAF who are belittling this tournament to the extent of giving the winners just $80 000.

MAYBE, THAT’S WHY EVEN MESSI ISN’T TALKING TO THE MEDIA

I stayed up until the early hours of Wednesday morning, as I always do when Argentina — a football nation I first fell in love with exactly 30 years ago when Diego Maradona turned football into poetry in the Mexican sunshine in ’86 — are playing in World Cup qualifiers.

It’s something I religiously do because my love affair with the Albiceleste, the nickname of the Argentina national team, coming fourth in the pecking order of my favourite football teams — with my Warriors in first place, my hometown club Falcon Gold in second place and of course, my beloved Manchester United in third place.

Just like with my beloved Manchester United, who didn’t win a league championship until 23 years after I was born, my beloved Warriors who didn’t qualify for the Nations Cup finals for 23 years and my beloved Falcon Gold who began missing my regular presence at their games, 23 years ago as Harare turned into my adopted home, my enduring romance with Argentina has had its fair share of highs and lows.

The ultimate humiliation came in the early hours of September 6, 1993, when I watched helplessly, as the Albiceleste crashed to a 0-5 defeat, in their Buenos Aires fortress, at the hands of a rampant Colombia in a World Cup qualifying humiliation that will never be forgotten in Argentina and by their fans.

Such was the beauty, if not the purity, of the Colombians’ performance that day, with both Faustino Asprilla and Freddy Rincon scoring braces and the ginger-haired Carlos Valderrama providing the conductor to the orchestra with a sublime show in midfield that, after they scored their fourth goal, the Argentine fans at the Estadio Monumental started cheering every touch by the visitors who were given a standing ovation at the end of the match.

Interestingly, the Colombians once again provided the opposition, on Wednesday, for an Argentine side in turmoil after a 0-3 humiliation in their last game against their biggest rivals Brazil, in Belo Horizonte, just a few days earlier.

But there was no repeat of ’93 and, with Lionel Messi in devastating form, scoring one of the best free-kicks seen in recent times and then providing assists for two other goals, Argentina ran out comfortable 3-0 winners over a Colombian side featuring James Rodriguez, Falcao and Juan Cuadrado, to blow winds into the sails of their 2018 World Cup adventure.

After the meltdown in Belo Horizonte, leaving Messi to field some painful questions from reporters, this was refreshing, but what followed, after that hammering of Colombia, was not what I had expected.

Instead of Messi, as captain, appearing for the post-match press conference, the Barcelona superstar was joined by the entire Argentine team, 25 of his Match Day teammates, to face their country’s media and it became clear, something was wrong.

Then, Messi spoke.

“We have decided not to speak any more with the press,” he said. “We’ve received many accusations, a lot of lack of respect and we never said anything. We’re very sorry it has to be like this, but we have no option. We know there are lots of you who are not in the game of showing us respect, but getting into one’s personal life is very grave and that’s why we’re here (announcing this).”

Then, just like that, they all walked out.

BEWARE OF THE GIANT STADIUM HOODOO MAKEPEKEPE

Two years ago, CAPS United ended ZPC Kariba’s championship dreams in the final game of the season as they beat them 3-2 in the final match of the season and, in the process, hand the league title to their bitter rivals Dynamos who beat How Mine 2-0 at Rufaro.

A year earlier, the Green Machine also ended the dreams of Harare City by holding them to a 2-2 draw, in the final game of the season, at the National Sports Stadium and in the process, hand the league title to Dynamos.

Now, Makepekepe, who have played party spoilers in two of the past three years, have a date with destiny in the giant stadium tomorrow and their fans will be hoping that the gods of football will not hit them hard.

TO GOD BE THE GLORY!

Come on Warriors!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Khamaldinhoooooooooooooooooo!

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STEVIE G REMINDS ME, IN MORE WAYS THAN ONE, OF THE IMMORTAL JOEL SHAMBO
STEVEN GERRARD, one of the greatest players of his generation, this week announced his retirement from football sparking a mainstream and social media frenzy as tributes poured in from all over the world in honour of his distinguished service to the game and a unique talent that illuminated our sport. He spent virtually his entire glittering career, a very good 17 years of service at his beloved Liverpool and even the Reds of Merseyside represent the ultimate enemy for someone like me, a die-harder Manchester United fan, the fact that Stevie G was special wasn’t lost in the mist of the hatred that exists between the two fierce rivals.

That Gerrard hated my United is something he didn’t hide, but that’s what one expects from true Liverpool people, but that didn’t dilute his special quality and although we didn’t admit it openly, he was one player from the old enemy we yearned for and conceded he would have added value to our Red Devils.

Liverpool have had many better players than Gerrard over the years and Kenny Dalglish, Graeme Souness and John Barnes — in my little book — were better than him, but it’s very unlikely that any of them had as much influence, as individuals, on this iconic football club than Stevie G.

In March last year, the influential English newspaper, The Daily Telegraph, published a list of their 50 greatest Liverpool players of all-time and they put Gerrard at the top, as the greatest of them all, even though his trophy cabinet doesn’t include a league title after spending his career in the shadows of a Manchester United success story.

“A contention choice ahead of Dalglish, but the context in which Gerrard won his trophies — in consistently reshaped teams and (playing) alongside many average players — edges him into top spot,” The Telegraph argued.

And I agree with them.

For Gerrard didn’t play for an All-Star Liverpool team that dominated English football, like his predecessors, but played for a Reds side empire had long crumbled, their dominance of the domestic scene ended by Sir Alex Ferguson and his Manchester United side who had knocked them off their perch.

But, still, Gerrard inspired his Liverpool to greatness, usually single-handedly providing the spark for that success, from the Miracle in Istanbul when he picked his men from the canvas, after they had slumped to a 0-3 first half deficit against a rampant AC Milan in the 2005 Champions League final, to turn the game on its head in the second half and tie the match at 3-3 before going on to win the penalty shootout.

Liverpool, a dominant figure in Europe in the ‘80s, hadn’t been crowned European champions for 21 years when they arrived in Istanbul for that showdown against AC Milan and their nerves showed in that first half as they were taken apart by the Italians amid fears the Reds would be humiliated by the end of the contest.

But Gerrard inspired them on an incredible comeback, one for the ages, leading from the front, as he usually did, as he headed home to reduce the deficit before winning a penalty which Xabi Alonso converted for the equaliser to shock the world and force the game into extra-time and penalties which Liverpool won.

He called it “the best moment of my life” and for good measure too.

Then, a year later, he was the heart and soul of that sensational comeback, from 0-2 down in the FA Cup final, setting up Djibril Cisse to halve the deficit and then, with only seconds remaining on the clock, hammering home a sweet drive, from about 30 metres, to force extra-time and another penalty shootout which Liverpool won against West Ham.

Gerrard, of course, will also always be remembered, by critics, as that great player who never won the league title and considering that he inspired Liverpool to success in Europe, twice appearing in the Champions League final, he can’t argue that he didn’t have a team good enough to be champions of England.

And, as fate would have it, when Liverpool appeared on course to end that nightmare, the football gods punched Gerrard in the face, as he lost his footing in that game against Chelsea at Anfield, of all places, leaving Demba Ba with a clear route on goal with the Chelsea striker drilling the ball home in what was the beginning of the end of the Reds’ campaign.

Gerrard also has an army of critics who say that while he was outstanding for Liverpool he never reached those heights in an England shirt and given that, for a time he was the captain of the side, they feel he let down his country big time at a time when it looked to him to provide the inspiration.

One of the best football writers in the world today, if not the very best, is a guy called Martin Samuel, who writes for the Daily Mail of England and if you really enjoy reading about football, I suggest that you read a lot of this big guy’s stuff.

In the wake of the 2014 World Cup disaster in Brazil, Martin wrote a typical good piece about the footballer, saying that while he had illuminated Anfield and shone in the Liverpool jersey and has a right to claim membership of those who can be called great, he came short for his national team and just like his failure to win a league title, it’s something that will always haunt him.

THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO MARTIN SAMUEL

“It is pointless asking Steven Gerrard where it all goes wrong. Gerrard is where it all goes wrong,” Samuel wrote.

“Not just in this tournament, not just with the odd mistake of a player raging against the dying of the light, but from the very start, from his earliest days as an international footballer.

“All those times when we looked and wondered what happened to the Gerrard we knew, the one in the red shirt, a hero of the modern game. That was it going wrong. That was it right there.

“Name Gerrard’s greatest performance for Liverpool. It is impossible to stop at one — the second half of the 2005 Champions League final; the FA Cup final in 2006; that Champions League tie against Olympiacos in 2004; the 3-0 win over Everton in 2012; Napoli in the Europa League in 2010; as a 21-year-old against Manchester United in 2001.

“Anfield regulars would not stop there. They could add another 50, maybe 100. Southampton, New Year’s Day, 2001; Marseille in 2008. Games that Liverpool would not have won without Gerrard, the pumping heartbeat.

“Now do the same with Gerrard and England. Several of those who have seen each one of his 113 appearances tried it yesterday. There was a consensus on Andorra away in 2007 under Steve McClaren. And not a whole lot else.

“He was very good when England beat Germany 5-1 in Munich, but so were a lot of players. There was a friendly against Hungary immediately after the 2010 World Cup, when he stopped the Fabio Capello backlash reaching its shrill crescendo.

“Yet Gerrard’s malaise is England malaise. Just as the national team is less than the sum of its parts, so his century of England appearances do not amount to his best 10, maybe his best five, for Liverpool.

“Gerrard, an admirable individual of great honesty and often given to brutal self-analysis, admits as much. On the occasion of his 100th cap, he said he had played six or seven good games for England.

“Yet it is impossible to divorce Gerrard’s legacy as a player from the decade or so of underachievement from what was a highly promising England group.

“It is as if someone has pulled the plug on The Beatles, chucked a blanket over Gainsborough, brought the curtain down on Larry Olivier. This is one of the finest footballers we will ever see. And we’re harking back to a golden hour against Andorra.”

STEVIE G REMINDS ME SO MUCH OF A GENIUS CALLED JOEL SHAMBO

In the week that Gerrard announced his retirement, CAPS United stand on the verge of one of their greatest triumphs — if not the greatest of them all — should they hold their nerve in Gweru this afternoon and complete the job against a plucky Chapungu waiting in ambush as party spoilers at Ascot.

The Green Machine have won four league titles in their history, a poor return if you ask me, given the great players who have donned their famous green-and-white shirt and that their biggest rivals Dynamos have won 21, including twice in their history winning four on the trot, puts Makepekepe’s failures into context.

Can you believe it that throughout the ‘80s, when some feel CAPS United were at their strongest, the Green Machine didn’t even win one single league championship while the likes of Zimbabwe Saints came to the party, Black Rhinos even won two during that period and Dynamos dominated it with seven titles, I’m sure?

Think about some of the greatest CAPS United players of the ‘80s, Oscar Motsi, he played football with a rhythm they even called him Simbimbino, Shacky Tauro, the greatest goalscorer of his generation, Friday Phiri, they called him Amayenge because he could make them sing with joy, Never Chiku, the stealth bomber they called Maswerasei and tell me why a team as good as that could not win the championship in that decade?

And, of course, they had Joel Shambo, as good a midfielder as they will ever come, so influential, like Stevie G, they even called The Headmaster, Mwalimu, Jubilee and as Choga Tichatonga Gavhure would say in his immortal commentaries, “mazita kuita kupfekerana.”

But that team didn’t win the championship throughout the ‘80s and it wasn’t until 1996, thanks to the arrival of a number of players poached from Darryn T via Blackpool, that the Green Machine found a way to be champions, ending a 17-year wait, having won their first title in 1979 when the likes of Shambo were in their youths.

Shambo, more than any other player, reminds me of Steven Gerrard because he was unplayable for the Green Machine, as good as any player you will ever see, yet he didn’t reproduce the same impact in the national team.

Like Gerrard, Shambo was a bastion of loyalty to his Green Machine and when his colleagues like Stanford “Stix” Mtizwa and Stanley “Sinyo” Ndunduma were lured by the promises that Black Rhinos put on the table and left to join Chipembere, Jubilee resisted all those charms and remained at his beloved CAPS United.

And, like Gerrard, one of his finest matches came in a six-goal thriller of that unforgettable Chibuku Trophy final against Rhinos which ended 3-3 with Shacky scoring twice for Makepekepe and Amayenge scoring the other goal.

Sadly, for the Green Machine, they lost the replay 2-1 with Stix, one of their old boys, scoring for Rhinos, but even though they lost, Shambo’s legacy actually grew simply because he had chosen to remain a part of them and that is why he will always be celebrated as one of the greatest, if not the greatest, CAPS United son of all-time.

They also remember the starring role he played in that seven-goal demolition of the old enemy Dynamos.

And, as the CAPS United family pray for another league title this afternoon, many will be convinced that Jubilee’s spirit will be with them at Ascot this afternoon as they attempt to clear the final hurdle and become champions again.

History favours CAPS United because, in the 23 seasons of the modern era of the PSL, only twice has a team that led the race in Week 29 failed to complete the marathon as winners.

And, on both occasions, the Green Machine were heavily involved.

First, they spoiled the party for ZPC Kariba, who had taken the leadership of the race in Week 29 by beating Dynamos 2-1, by beating the Kariba side 3-2 at the National Sports Stadium and with DeMbare beating How Mine 2-0 at Rufaro, the helicopter that delivers the championship trophy turned to Rufaro where the Glamour Boys were honoured as champions.

Then, three years ago, Harare City took full control of the race in Week 29 by thrashing Highlanders 4-0 at Rufaro but then were held to a 2-2 draw by Makepekepe in the final game and Dynamos beat Black Mambas 2-0 at Rufaro to be crowned champions. Maybe, who knows, the football gods are about to punish CAPS United in the worst possible manner, for wrecking the championship dreams of ZPC Kariba and Harare City, by providing a hurdle that will be too high for them to clear at Ascot today.

But the superstitious ones will say that a team that thrashes Bosso in Week 29, as Harare City did at Rufaro in 2013 and FC Platinum did at Mandava on Sunday, is always doomed to ultimately fail in this race.

Given what Makepekepe have gone through this season, the challenges they have faced, there are some neutrals who are in their corner wishing them all the best and that is why I believe, if they can win it, this could represent their greatest triumph.

Steven Gerrard, who was born on May 30, 1980, just a few months after Shambo and his CAPS United teammates won their first league title, has waved goodbye to a stellar playing career and for the Green Machine family, maybe it’s meant to be that — just days after the English talisman called it quits — their team will be crowned champions.

CHRONOLOGY OF CHAMPIONS

TO GOD BE THE GLORY!

Come on Warriors!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Khamaldinhoooooooooooooooooo!

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Email – robsharuko@gmail.com

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Chat with me on Facebook, follow me on Twitter @Chakariboy, interact with me on Viber or read my material in The Southern Times or on www.sportszone.co.zw. The authoritative ZBC weekly television football magazine programme, Game Plan, is back on air and you can interact with me and the legendary Charles “CNN” Mabika every Monday evening.

Sharuko on Saturday
THE global football community has been grieving all week, shedding tears for the players and coaches of a lightweight Brazilian club that dared to challenge the establishment in a remarkable adventure that held the world spellbound, who perished in that horrific plane crash in Colombia.

More than 50 000 fans of Colombian side Atletico National packed their Estadio Atanasio Girardst on Wednesday night to provide a moving tribute of glowing sights and captivating sounds to their fallen opponents, who left their Brazilian base on Monday, but never arrived for the first leg of the 2016 Copa Sudamericana final showdown.

Chapecoense’s stunning rise from obscurity, transforming themselves from just a small-town club into a giant that reached the final of a tournament that is South American football’s version of the UEFA Europa League and the CAF Confederation Cup, had captured the imagination of the entire football world.

But on the journey to the biggest game in their history, fate conspired to provide a cruel closing chapter to their adventure when the chartered plane they were travelling in to Colombia ran out of fuel and was crippled by catastrophic electrical failure before it plunged down just a few kilometres from their destination.

Seventy one people, including 19 players and 21 journalists, perished in that plane crash, leaving us to deal with some tough questions that will never be answered, wondering why such a remarkable journey had to end in such tragic circumstances and why such beautiful dreams had to be shattered in such a cruel fashion.

But amid the flood of tears, football — just like life itself — must go on.

For there have been plane crashes before in the past 70 years, wiping out entire sports teams, and — as sure as the fact that summer will follow the beauty that comes with spring — there will be plane crashes in the future, which will certainly kill some of the world’s finest athletes and its greatest coaches.

But despite the horror inflicted by these disasters, the world has somehow found a way to go on. That is why today, the biggest and most glamorous club football showdown in the world, El Clasico, will go ahead before an estimated 100 000 fans at Barcelona’s Camp Nou this afternoon, with more than $1 billion worth of talent in action, a global television audience of more than 400 million people and a mainstream and social media frenzy that will feast on the drama and dominate the global buzz during the 90 minutes of the titanic battle.

And back home, league champions CAPS United will stage their open-top bus parade in Harare and Chitungwiza today, to thank their home fans — after having won the championship on the road in Gweru — with the club paying tribute to people whose patience, to wait for 11 years for their beloved team to win another league championship, was the stuff that true supporters are made of.

The party will, fittingly, end at the National Sports Stadium, where the Green Machine built a fortress and refused to be beaten all seaso, even on the occasion when they trailed their biggest rivals — Dynamos— by three goals with just five minutes left on the clock in that unforgettable match, which was probably the Game of the Year.

Last night, the domestic football family converged in Harare for the Premiership’s annual prize-giving gala with CAPS United players, Hardlife Zvirekwi and Leonard Tsipa dominating the ceremony as the defender took home the gong for best player while the ageless forward went home with the Golden Boot and also finished second in the race for the Golden Ball. Not since Malawian international Joseph Kamwendo won the Soccer Star of the Year in 2005, has a CAPS United player been honoured as the best footballer in the domestic Premiership and that the top award went to Zvirekwi was fitting because he earned his stripes in his 28 league matches, where he put in 2 500 minutes and provided five assists, while also starring for the Warriors in their 2017 AFCON campaign.

A DEAD HEAT THAT REMINDS ME OF NINETY SIX

It’s now 21 years since I lasted voted for the Soccer Star of the Year, having last cast my vote in 1995 when Tauya Murewa, a forward so good during his prime that the media called him “The Flying Doctor”, his nickname steeped in the roots of his medical field at a time he was a student at the University of Zimbabwe, won the award.

A year later, having been elevated to the chairmanship of the Sportswriters Association of Zimbabwe, I couldn’t cast a vote but had to oversee the ceremony and I was part of the few people allowed to witness the final counting which saw Stewart Murisa being crowned Soccer Star of the Year, an accolade he richly deserved.

Twenty years later, on Tuesday, I was part of the panel of elders who supervised the voting process for the 2016 Soccer Star of the Year, and I think the panel did a pretty decent job in selecting the XI players and settling for Zvirekwi as the best player on the domestic scene this season even though it wouldn’t have been a travesty of justice if Tsipa had won it.

Just like in 1996, when Murisa deservedly won the award, it wouldn’t have been out of order if the people who voted had given the award to Alois Bunjira, who shone like a beacon all season that year, leaving the sponsors of the league back then, BAT Zimbabwe, to comfort him with the Kingsgate Player of the Year award.

The case for Tsipa was largely sentimental and in such awards, it counts a lot.

A player in the twilight of his career, running on 35-year-old legs, which have been taking a lengthy battering in the tough trenches of the domestic game for more than 16 years, written off as a spent force a few years ago and then suddenly finding a new lease of life to win the Golden Boot as CAPS United found a way to banish the ghosts allergic to the sweet smell of championship success, which had stalked the Green Machine for more than a decade, Tsipa was simply brilliant.

Ravaged by injuries throughout a career in which he gave more than his fair share towards the CAPS United cause, Tsipa’s longevity on the big stage has been a model in an unforgiving industry where a number of young players, consumed by the demons of fame, have failed to last the distance and, like shooting stars, faded into the horizon even before reaching the peak of their athletic powers.

But a return of just 11 goals in 22 league matches in a season when the domestic forwards were once again infected by the Kaizer Chiefs’ syndrome, whose symptoms are a severe lack of goals all year, was always going to be a shade too little for the Golden Ball, even though the Golden Boot provided cold comfort in possibly his last serious attempt to join the likes of Murisa, Kamwendo, George Nechironga, Energy Murambadoro and Cephas Chimedza as CAPS United sons who won the Soccer Star of the Year award.

Those fighting in Tsipa’s corner will say that 10 of his goals came in a winning cause for the Green Machine, which illustrates their weight in gold, and the other came right at the death to rescue a priceless point against ZPC Kariba at Rufaro and in a season where he dwarfed players half his age on the scoring charts, it should have been enough to win him the Soccer Star of the Year. But they, too, will probably agree that Zvirekwi richly deserved it after shining in the 28 league matches he played for his side, providing five assists, having been pushed back into the right wingback defensive role by Lloyd Chitembwe this season after having played the majority of last year in an advanced role down that flank, where defending was not really part of his primary duties.

That he is the only in-field player in the domestic Premiership to feature regularly for the Warriors, who booked a ticket to Gabon added weight to his cause — even though the consideration has to be what he does in the league — and it’s refreshing, too, to see that this year he dumped his bad boy image, the rebel who usually lit the blue torch paper in leading player rebellions at the club, as he concentrated on improving his game.

And in a season where the best forward had 11 league goals, it was possibly only right that a defensive-minded player gets the top gong and those who have seen Zvirekwi dump his rebellious streak this year smile when you call him Nairobi, even though it provides a reminder of an ordeal that showed us his limitations when it comes to international travel, where keeping your passport is one of the most important things, will tell you the big award would not have gone to a nicer guy.

Or a better professional.

SPARE A THOUGHT,

OF COURSE, FOR BRUCE

That Bruce Kangwa never made the top XI, even when he was the best player in the first half of the season by a country mile was an aberration and one of the biggest shame stories that emerged from what was largely a decent shift by the panel that voted for this season’s Soccer Stars of the Year.

Of course, Bruce played half the season, but with the regulations saying a player needs a minimum of 10 games to qualify for selection, he should have made the cut without any shade of doubt among the best XI and in my little book, even among the best three if our panelists had not suffered from the sickness of quickly forgetting what happened in the first half of the season.

That Bruce thrived in his new role as a forward, leading the scoring charts in his first season in attack and, crucially, providing the cutting edge for a club as huge as Highlanders, was special and Bosso would probably have ended 10 years of waiting for the league championship had he stayed the full course and not been poached by the Tanzanian Moneybags.

In a campaign when Hwange’s Gift Mbweti, who played the entire season, owes his place on the Soccer Stars of the Year list to the nine goals he scored, in a campaign when FC Platinum’s Walter Musona, who played the entire season owes his place on the Soccer Stars of the Year list to the nine goals he scored, isn’t it an insult to the virtues of Fair Play and justice that a former fullback, in his first season as a forward, who scored seven goals in just the first five months of the season, isn’t rewarded for his great work?

How does a player, who won THREE successive Player of the Months awards, in the same campaign, in June, July and August, suddenly fail to make the final list of XI players in a campaign that lasted seven months?

“I don’t have any idea as to which other player in the league is currently playing better than Bruce,” his Dutch manager Elroy Akbay told this newspaper in August.

“He is a star, he likes to play football, that is why I changed him from being a defender to a striker. He certainly deserves the awards. I am certainly worried about Bruce’s imminent departure. He had proven to be the match winner for my team. Of course, we play as a team but one thing for certain, Bruce is the cog.

“We do not stand in his way, but it will be a daunting task to look for someone who can actually replace him. HE IS A SPECIAL PLAYER.”

That Bosso struggled after his departure says it all.

AND WHAT DOES THIS

SAY ABOUT TATENDA?

You got to feel for the Warriors’ number one ‘keeper, Tatenda Mukuruva, too, and that his name hardly featured among the selectors in the battle for the best XI players of the season is worrying, especially when one takes into account the fact that this is the man who will provide the last line of defence for our national team in Gabon.

He was my best player last season, even though the award went to Danny Phiri because I felt that, for a young man, fresh out of high school, to establish himself as the number one ‘keeper at Dynamos, and all the demands that come with such a daunting task and then force his way to become the Warriors’ number one, was simply sensational.

It’s certainly not his fault that he played behind a questionable DeMbare defence, in a team that never challenged for the title, but one is tempted to feel that this young man is getting a sense that he is a victim of rejection by the domestic game, and he only now has his national coach Callisto Pasuwa for an ally.

There are some critics who now even doubt his pedigree and even believe he could prove the Warriors’ Achilles Heel in Gabon, with some even citing his diminutive frame as the reason why they fear the worst when the West and African heavyweight forwards come to bully him in the penalty box in January. And they have been exerting pressure on the young man, leaving him to battle the psychological demons that come with such questions and possible rejection, and the fact that the panellists decided he wasn’t even good enough, not only to make it among the best XI but, crucially, not even to feature close to that arena, will only boost the doubts.

Tatenda badly needs a comforting arm, and if there was a time for Pasuwa to give assurance to his man that he remains the best in his position, because I’m getting this feeling that the young man is getting an impression he is a victim of rejection and it brings the demons of doubt and, for a goalkeeper, that could be disastrous for a team.

But who are we to talk about tomorrow when, as the those doves of Chapecoense showed us when, just like that, they were engulfed by darkness in that disaster in Colombia that has left all of us, who love this game dearly, with broken hearts?

TO GOD BE THE GLORY!

Come on Warriors!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Khamaldinooooooooooooooooooo!

Text Feedback – 0772545199

WhatsApp Messenger – 0772545199

Email – robsharuko@gmail.com

Skype – sharuko58

Chat with me on Facebook, follow me on Twitter @Chakariboy, interact with me on Viber or read my material in The Southern Times or on www.sportszone.co.zw. The authoritative ZBC weekly television football magazine programme, Game Plan, is back on air and you can interact with me and the legendary Charles “CNN” Mabika every Monday evening.

THEY invaded the Midlands capital like an army of Vikings, in the year Iceland flexed its football muscles with a spectacular show of both force and vociferous support for a club that had seemingly perfected the art of breaking their hearts. And two weeks after that colourful football carnival, residents of Gweru, still talking about the spectacular sights and the incredible sounds, which became — for one unforgettable day — the face of their city as the incredible and impressive power of football paraded its beauty in full bloom.

Not since a blue-and-white army had arrived in the same city and for a similar cause — for their coronation as champions at the same stadium four years ago — had Gweru seen such sights, and heard such sounds from an invading battalion of domestic football’s aristocracy.

And as cruel fate would somehow script it, a city which this year represented the ultimate tragedy for Dynamos, with eight of their fans perishing in an accident on their way to a league match at Ascot, would in December transform itself into a theatre of grand celebrations for CAPS United.

For more than a decade, the majority of these CAPS United fans had waited, their patience being stretched to the limit by the failings of a club that frustratingly kept punching below its considerable weight, transforming its fans into objects of ridicule. Especially for the fans of their biggest rivals, Dynamos, a club whose dominance of the domestic championship was ruthless.

At times they appeared a clone of Manchester United during Sir Alex Ferguson’s golden era, with Callisto Pasuwa guiding them to four on the trot.

David Mandigora also chipped in with a title in 2007 and a CAF Champions League semi-final place the following year, to provide the spice.

But with DeMbare enduring their worst season in the championship race this year, their potency immobilised by a disastrous flirtation with a Portuguese joker disguised as a football coach, with his surname the only closest thing the Glamour Boys got in him providing the silver lining which the giants had hoped for, the spoils of success for Makepekepe tasted even sweeter.

And Ascot, the scene of the Green Machine meltdown last season, which provoked a defining change in the club’s coaching staff with legend Lloyd Chitembwe being recalled from a prolonged stint in the wilderness, where he even ended flirting with an obscure Division One club that almost soiled his reputation, fittingly provided the stage for CAPS United’s overdue coronation as champions.

A 1-2 defeat to Chapungu at Ascot on August 29 last year, coming on the back of a single win in six matches — a 1-0 victory over Flame Lily, a 0-1 defeat at Harare City and three draws against Chicken Inn (0-0); Tsholotsho (1-1); and Dongo Sawmill (0-0), with the last two draws coming at the National Sports Stadium — finally provided the persuasion for the club’s leadership for changes in their coaching staff with Chitembwe returning as head coach.

Such was the spectacular transformation which they underwent under Chitembwe’s surgical brilliance since their last visit to Ascot.

They had lost only four of their 38 league matches when they arrived for their defining showdown against Chapungu that Saturday, with their fate for a ticket on football’s glory fields firmly in their hands.

However, with a point at Ascot not enough to guarantee success, what with a rampaging FC Platinum heavily favoured to beat Tsholotsho, which they did without raising a sweat in a 3-0 roll, CAPS United needed nerves of steel on an afternoon when the burden of expectations would test their character to the very end.

And the ghosts of their 1-2 loss there last year, and a 0-3 hammering in 2014 would weigh down heavily on the players.

Even when Simba Nhivi gave them an early lead, it was difficult to calm the nerves, for statistics provided grim reading for the CAPS United family as they showed that Chapungu usually score at home and, this season, no club had left Ascot with a clean sheet in the entire first half of the league campaign.

It wasn’t until Round 19, when ZPC Kariba came to Gweru and won 1-0, that Chapungu finally failed to score at home in the league this year, and that only three other clubs — Bulawayo City, Highlanders and FC Platinum — subsequently found a way to stop the airmen from scoring in their backyard, provided evidence, if CAPS United needed it, of the tough examination that was in store for them.

But if these fans needed a team with an indomitable spirit, one that could weather a hurricane, one that could be banked upon to withstand the heat even in this treacherous airfield, then this was the perfect group of players.

A group of individuals, certainly short on the kind of raw individual talents that had inspired the Classes of ’79, ’96, 2004 and 2005 to the Promised Land, but certainly long on both ambition and crucially, a never-say-die attitude which had made them unbeatable at home in the league all season, and elsewhere outside Bulawayo in the whole campaign.

A SUCCESS STORY WRITTEN IN THE STARS IN A YEAR OF SUCH REMARKABLE TALES
And when it was all over at Ascot two weeks ago, the mission having been completed in style and in rain by a team whose defensive solidity had given nothing away in three tough final games, all won by 1-0 margins, the party exploded in Gweru with the invading army celebrating their return to the top with song and dance, which provided the Midlands capital with its own version of a Green Machine carnival.

Of course, minus the virtually naked Brazilian samba girls, who come with the package that includes seductive dances and flashy smiles to light up even a gloomy winter evening, on the occasions when this carnival is held in the capital.

In a year that has provided us with a lot of fascinating tales of underdogs like Leicester City challenging the established order to become the most unlikely of English Premiership champions, the Chicago Cubs ending 108 years of waiting to win baseball’s World Series and a host of other lightweights, like Wales and Iceland at Euro 2016, it would only have been fitting that FC Platinum win the domestic championship.

Fitting for Norman Mapeza and his men to finally exorcise the ghost that has stalked clubs from outside Harare and Bulawayo for exactly half a century in which their quest for the league championship has borne no fruit and that this was the 50th anniversary of the year the immortals of St Paul’s Musami achieved that feat in 1966, it would only have been proper for FC Platinum to win.

But as I warned on this blog last week, a team that thrashes Highlanders in Week 29 of the season the way FC Platinum did this year with a 3-0 victory, and the way Harare City did three years ago with a thumping 4-0 victory, usually doesn’t end up as winners of the domestic Premiership title.

Even when my colleagues on ZTV’s Monday night authoritative football magazine programme, “Game Plan”, the legendary Charles “CNN” Mabika and Wellington Mpandare called it in FC Platinum’s favour, in the week leading to the final round of matches, I told them this was a race that would end with CAPS United celebrating despite their last two visits to Ascot having provided the hosts with a 5-1 aggregate victory.

And as it came to pass on that Saturday, some regular viewers of that television programme and readers of the blog started sending me messages across all platforms suggesting — once again — that I was a prophet, something I have repeatedly said I’m not, once again reminding that I’m just a mere journalist and the man who is a prophet is my good brother Walter Magaya.

Chitembwe, a deeply religious man, told me his team’s success was something written in the stars, something our good Lord provided for Green Machine family to help them heal the emotional wounds of more than 10 years of failure, and when one looks back at the just-ended season and all that happened, it’s difficult not to agree with Lodza.

For how does one explain that stunning comeback from the dead, three goals down with just five minutes left in regulation time and three more minutes of time added on against their biggest rivals and, somehow, they find the strength to rise from the canvas and not only score three goals but even get a golden chance to win that match?

How does one explain that show of character by these players refusing to be deflated by How Mine, completing a comeback from two goals down at the giant stadium, with the miners’ second goal coming on the stroke of full-time, and somehow finding the energy to go to the other end and, with the last touch of the game, score the winner through Dominic Chungwa?

How does one explain that excellent performance in Hwange, which certainly deserved three instead of the one point they picked, after they had travelled to the Colliery on an overnight trip following in-house issues in the camp, arriving there just in time for the start of the game and somehow emerging as the better team when many would have been betrayed by the battering the long journey had taken on their bodies?

Yes, Lodza, it was written in the stars and my pastor says it again and again that when God opens a door, no man can shut it and it’s clearly said, loud and clear, in Revelations 3:8 “I KNOW THY WORKS. BEHOLD, I HAVE SET BEFORE THEE AN OPEN DOOR, AND NO MAN CAN SHUT IT. FOR THOU HAST A LITTLE STRENGTH, AND HAS KEPT MY WORD, AND HAST NOT DENIED MY NAME.”

TWENTY YEARS LATER, THE DEFINING GAME CAME AGAINST THE OLD ENEMY

I was one of the privileged witnesses of that compelling drama at Rufaro, 20 years ago, when Mphumelelo Dzowa drove home an unstoppable bullet from a free-kick late in the game of a defining match for the CAPS United season, to hand the Green Machine a priceless point against Dynamos that provided a knockout blow to their biggest rivals in what was a gruelling contest for the league championship.

If DeMbare had won that day, which their industry and superb organisation on the afternoon probably deserved, the outcome of the championship race could probably have turned out differently, given doubts would have started to creep into that CAPS United side, weighed down by 17 years of failure, with the Glamour Boys having blown wind into their sails.

I have always maintained that fine collection of Glamour Boys would have won the CAF Champions League the previous year had they not self-destructed at home with a fatal coaching boob that sidelined Moses Chunga to the bench in the second leg of their quarter-final tie against Express of Uganda — has been forgotten and hardly features when people speak about some of the finest ever assembled sides on the domestic front.

But I have fought hard to ensure their memory isn’t forgotten because they were a very special team, better than the Orlando Pirates side that won the ’95 CAF Champions League, and it’s sad their campaign was crippled by a fatal decision to relegate Bambo, the hero of their 1-0 win in the first leg in Uganda, to the bench in the second leg in Harare.

Without Chunga’s influence, that DeMbare side lacked a cutting edge in midfield and Express took full advantage, scoring in the first half to wipe out that deficit, and when Bambo was thrown in at the start of the second half, he reminded his coaches what they had missed in the first 45 minutes, with his first touch producing a goal for the archives — taking the ball on his chest and volleying it into the top corner from a distance for the equaliser.

At that moment, Dynamos were going through to the semi-finals.

But Express scored again and although Chunga crafted a number of very good chances for Vitalis Takawira and Tauya Murewa, looking for the one goal that would have tied the contest in Harare and taken Dynamos into the semi-finals on a 3-2 aggregate, the young forwards failed to convert in that cauldron of pressure.

The following year, in ’96, that DeMbare side were the only club good enough to beat Nigerian powerhouse Shooting Stars, by a two-goal margin, in that season’s CAF Champions League campaign, with Dynamos winning 3-1 in Harare, a match which they could even have won by a rugby scoreline had Stars’ goalkeeper Abiodun Baruwa not produced a man-of-the-match performance in a losing cause.

That Shooting Stars team eliminated Pirates, Algerian giants JS Kabylie before losing the final in a penalty shootout to Zamalek of Egypt.

Back home, DeMbare were beaten to the league title by a very, very good CAPS United side — which some say was the best Green Machine of all-time — by just three points.

Sadly, very few care to remember that had that vintage DeMbare side won the Harare Derby in Round 23, if Mphumelelo’s late screamer hadn’t rescued a point for Makepekepe, things could have turned out differently in a championship race that, at the end, saw the two giants being separated by just three points — having won the same number of games (25), drawn the same number of games (5), with the difference coming in the games which they lost with CAPS losing just three and Dynamos four.

But, it’s something that isn’t said a lot in our game, that Dynamos side outscored a CAPS United side that had Stewart Murisa, the best player that season, Alois Bunjira, who also did enough to lay claim to the best player of the year award, Morgan Nkathazo, Farai Mbidzo and Joe Mugabe.

That DeMbare side scored 79 goals while Makepekepe scored 75 and while the Glamour Boys conceded 25 goals compared to the 26 which the Green Machine conceded that season.

And exactly 20 years after Mphumelelo’s late screamer in the Harare Derby provided a defining championship-winning moment, with the pendulum swinging towards Makepekepe after they inflicted a knockout blow on their closest rivals, history virtually repeated itself this year when CAPS United stormed back from that 0-3 defeat, with just five minutes of regulation time left, to tie the game.

It’s probably the finest comeback, in the history of the Harare Derby, an iconic contest which turns 40 next year, and Chitembwe concedes the deflation his men could have suffered, had they been embarrassed in their backyard by their biggest rivals with just few games left in the campaign, would have had serious repercussions in their quest for glory.

It’s too bad, isn’t it, we didn’t see a lot of that from DeMbare all season and, hopefully, the Green Machine’s success will not only pile the pressure on them, now that their fans are at the receiving end of the sickening jokes, but will also inspire them to rise again because, when they compete in the championship race, it enriches the marathon.

TO GOD BE THE GLORY!

Come on Warriors!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Khamaldinoooooooooooooooooo!

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Chat with me on Facebook, follow me on Twitter @Chakariboy, interact with me on Viber or read my material in The Southern Times or on www.sportszone.co.zw. The authoritative ZBC weekly television football magazine programme, Game Plan, is back on air and you can interact with me and the legendary Charles “CNN” Mabika every Monday evening.

IF Dynamos fans have been wondering how CAPS United overhauled an 11-point deficit, last year, and turned it into a 17-point advantage over the Glamour Boys in the championship race this year, the events of the past few days might provide a clue to that spectacular transformation.Last year, DeMbare finished second in the championship race, completing the marathon 11 points ahead of the Green Machine, who finished in fifth place, in yet another miserable season of under-achievement for a CAPS side that was still trapped in a sea of mediocrity.

It had become routine for the Glamour Boys to finish ahead of their biggest city rivals, and that they had done it in nine straight seasons — from 2007 to 2015 — made it a very predictable tale that Dynamos would ultimately complete the marathon in a better slot than their city rivals.

And last year, even in a season when DeMbare failed to win the league championship, for the first time in FIVE years, they still demonstrated their superiority over their city rivals by finishing 11 points better than CAPS United — winning FOUR more league games, scoring SEVEN more league goals and conceding THREE goals less than Makepekepe. But, in a remarkable turnaround, the Green Machine overturned an 11-point deficit, in less than a year, into a 17-point advantage over their eternal rivals in one of the biggest turnarounds, in terms of head-to-head analysis between the capital’s two biggest football clubs, as CAPS United were crowned champions.

Makepekepe won SIX more league games than DeMbare, lost FIVE fewer games, scored 13 more goals and had a superior defence even though their rivals were being served in goal by the man considered our best goalkeeper today, by Warriors’ coach Callisto Pasuwa, and is set to be in goals at the Nations Cup finals in Gabon next month.

So, how did CAPS United turn it around, in such spectacular fashion, that in just under a year they didn’t only erase the 11-point deficit that separated them from Dynamos, but went on to establish a 17-point advantage over the Glamour Boys in what my mathematician friends like Spencer Manguwa, Solomon Banda and Samuel Mwale will call a 28-point turnaround?

Well, for me, the events at Dynamos and CAPS United, in the past seven days, provided a clue as to why this happened and, if I’m not wrong, might even see the gap between the two giants grow even bigger when we come to the end of the championship race next year.

Ironically, as fate might have scripted it, five-star hotels provided the setting for the two events which provided a clue to me as to why one club remains trapped to the demons of its past and the other is working tirelessly, even in a difficult operating environment, to free itself from the clutches of primitivity and embrace a future built on a solid foundation of modernity.

On Sunday, a group of Dynamos players from the generation that played for the club between 1963 and 1968, who had parcelled out positions for themselves on an imaginary board of directors the previous day, met at a Harare hotel and — as they had done the day before — parcelled out executive positions to themselves as they declared themselves the new leadership at the club.

Ernest Kamba, the Soccer Star of the Year 43 years ago, was named the leader of the executive just a day after he had been named leader of the board of directors, while George Shaya, Soccer Star of the Year in ’69, ’72, ’75, ’76 and ’77 also emerged out of those meetings, with a leadership role in the bag, to tell the country this wasn’t another meaningless boardroom coup.

Four days later, at another five-star hotel across the capital, CAPS United hosted a glitzy function, as good as they will ever come on the domestic scene, as the Green Machine not only honoured the heroes who helped them end 11 years of waiting for the league championship but, crucially, brought a number of corporate heavyweights to plead for their company ahead of the seasons to come.

Barclays Bank were represented by their managing director George Guvamatanga, who was given the honour to give medals to the CAPS United players and technical staff for their success this year, CBZ Bank, Stanbic Bank and Afreximbank were all represented by senior management staff while Delta Beverages, NetOne and Econet, Nyaradzo Group of Companies, to name but a few leading corporates, all sent high-powered delegations.

Those who spoke on Thursday night, talked about the future, how football and the corporate world could reach out to each other the way such partnerships have turned Kaizer Chiefs, Orlando Pirates and Mamelodi Sundowns into commercial heavyweights, the changing dynamics in the partnerships and the best way to handle the challenges.

And those who spoke on Sunday, at the DeMbare meeting, talked about the past, a nostalgic journey back into an era when their club was the dominant bull in the kraal with stories about how they used to rule the roost in the ‘60s, ‘70s and ‘80s and, predictably, not mentioning how landscape had changed and things were not what they used to be back then. Where they had a George, as in Shaya, at the DeMbare indaba, where they spoke about the past, the days gone by in the ‘60s, ‘70s and ‘80s, they also had a George, as in Guvamatanga, the Barclays managing director, at the CAPS United function, where they spoke about the future and how they could embrace partnerships, and modern trends, to grow corporate and football brands.

For me that told a big story.

A CLUB DESPERATE TO WALK WITH THE TIMES

Of course, the younger and corporate-embedded George, dressed in a matching business suit — the kind of which you see on the streets of the German city of Frankfurt which is the hub of Europe’s banking services, for Thursday night’s occasion, should know.

After all, the international arm of the bank he manages here helped the English Premiership transform itself into the most successful football league, in terms of its commercial ventures, in the world while, just across the Limpopo, ABSA, a member of the Barclays Group, have been the financial rock on which the South African Premiership has been built.

An English Premiership whose clubs can now pay its best players $300 000 a week, without blinking an eye, thanks to the US$6.22 billion deal which the league, a commercial giant unrivalled on the football terrain, which Sky Sport and BT Sport agreed to pay for the television rights of the sights and sounds of what goes on in the league.

Which, only last month, signed another US$700 million deal for the Chinese market.

And, thanks to ABSA’s partnership, obscure South African clubs like Polokwane City now even have the financial muscle to offer George Chigova the working conditions, and security, where he can raise his family better than playing for a continental giant like Dynamos and we can lose our best player last year, Danny Phiri, to a modest Super Diski club.

The best coach in the country last year, Joey Antipas, even can be tempted by a Division One club in South Africa, which has long lost its way and, possibly, its soul, simply because Amazulu — who can possibly never dream of one day playing in the CAF Champions League — can offer him better working conditions than a Chicken Inn side that played in the Champions League this year.

Nyaradzo managing director, Webster Chikengezha, also graced the function and was given the honour to give one of the awards for the winners, should also know, given that his company provided the buses which are being used by about half the Premiership clubs and have ploughed a considerable fortune into the domestic game.

That Webster is a former Dynamos vice-chairman and secretary-general, before he wisely decided to walk away from the politics at the club that was polluting his corporate image, was very revealing and that he should not only grace the CAPS United function, but give it his endorsement, amid indications of a stronger marriage between the club and the company he was representing, going forward, was quite telling.

Farai Mungazi of the BBC, a journalist who has covered 11 African Champions League finals and is now considered one of the leading voices on African football, was also there to provide CAPS United with a reality check of the challenges that lie in their path, as they seek to make a mark on the continent, next season.

And, Hannah Wright, who in her previous professional roles worked for English Premiership giants Newcastle United and in the fast lane of Formula One, a sporting franchise worth more than US$8 billion and where one sponsor, like Heineken, can pour in US$150 million, as they did this year, without blinking an eye, fittingly brought the curtain down on Thursday night as the final speaker.

The desire within the CAPS United leadership, to do more in terms of turning their club into a success story, was very evident on Thursday night and even though it cost a little fortune, in these tough times, to put together such an event at a five-star hotel, it was important, in terms of their image, and where they want to go, for them to pay that huge bill to suffer now and, hopefully, expect to reap the benefits in due course.

The club’s president, Farai Jere, who wasn’t even born when Ernest Kamba was being crowned the Soccer Star of the Year, repeatedly emphasised the need for his team to look into the future, rather than being fooled by the achievements of this year to rest on their laurels and then wait for another 11 years for the domestic league title.

He said they were set to spend another fortune, in their CAF Champions League campaign next year, but that paled into insignificance when compared to the goodwill his club will attract, simply by flying their national flag on the continent, and if his men did not share his dream that they could make waves in the tournament, then they were at the wrong club and probably should consider their future.

And, fittingly, he paid tribute to Twine Phiri, the man who started this journey when CAPS Holdings divorced the club from its units and suffered considerable financial haemorrhage just trying to keep the club running in tough times before he realised he couldn’t do it anymore and passed the baton to Jere, for providing him with priceless leadership skills.

Phiri, who was in the house seated at the top table, received a standing ovation and was handed the honour to hand over the most important award of the night, the Club’s Player of the Year, in a fitting honour to his contribution to the club.

A CLUB THAT NEEDS TO REMOVE THE CHAINS OF ITS PAST

Stephen Chisango, the goalkeeper of the CAPS United side that won the club’s first league title in 1979, was there on Thursday to grace the occasion, and was also given the honour to hand over one of the awards to the players, later describing it as one of the proudest moments of his association with the Green Machine.

Joe Mugabe, one of the greatest CAPS United players of all-time, provided an audio recording, from his base in England, to wish his old club all the best on their awards night while Andy Hodges, the chairman of the 2004 and 2005 Green Machine team which won back-to-back titles, also provided a congratulatory message, via an audio link, from his base in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

The wife of Steve Kwashi, the first coach to lead CAPS United to the league championship after Independence, was also present at the function and was given the honour to hand over one of the awards in honour of her husband’s contribution to the Green Machine cause.

In sharp contrast, while the past characters in CAPS United’s journey appear ready to embrace those who are running, and playing for the club today, and wish them all the success, it’s a totally different story at Dynamos where, it appears, those who founded the club, and played for it, believe it should never escape their clutches.

Yes, Dynamos is a community team, but Pirates also used to be a community team before they saw the light and handed the club to someone who had a vision, and the financial muscle to keep it alive and successful and they have been rewarded with a CAF Champions League winners’ star and commercial success.

It’s not my job to say Kamba and his crew are wrong, or right, and there is no question they have the numbers — in terms of the former players — but as someone who has seen Black Aces go down the drain, Zimbabwe Saints now struggling somewhere in the wilderness, it pains me to realise that these old folks are failing to remove the chains of the past and embrace the future.

Yes, it might be fine to make yourselves the board of directors, but why then also make yourself the ones who run the day-to-day affairs of the club by also taking over the executive duties by appointing yourselves the chairman, vice-chairman etc, etc?

That’s giving your critics ammunition that you’re just a power-hungry people and, sadly, the domestic football world has simply moved on as if nothing happened.

Crucially, you can’t keep living in the ‘60s, ‘70s and ‘80s Mr Kamba because the Swinging Sixties came and went, this isn’t the era of punk, people landing on the moon for the first time, 32 African countries gaining Independence from their European colonial masters, the Vietnam War, the Indo-Pakistan War, the Six-Day War between Israel and its Arab neighbours, the Bay of Pigs invasion and the Cuban Missile Crisis.

Politics has moved from the era, back in the ‘60s, when leaders could be routinely assassinated — Martin Luther King, John F. Kennedy, Robert F. Kennedy, Malcolm X, Che Guevara and Patrice Lumumba.

The world has since moved on from the time the first heart transplant operation was done by a South African surgeon, Christiaan Barnard, from its first interaction with the female birth control contraceptive, from watching Bonnie and Clyde, Breakfast at Tiffany’s, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, The Dirty Dozen, Doctor Zhivago and Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner.

From listening to the Beatles, and an Elvis Presley fresh from serving in the US army, the Four Seasons, Woodstock Festival and the first time it heard the hit song Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, the so-called soundtrack of love in the summer of ’67 and, now, occasionally, Canadian singer Bryan Adams reminds us of ‘The Summer of ‘69’, how he got his “first real six-string, bought it at the five-and-dime, played it ‘til my fingers bled, me and some guys from school had a band and we tried real hard, Jimmy quit, Jody got married, I should’ve known we’d never get far, those were the best days of my life.”

That was then, this is now!

Ironically, Kamba and his colleagues appeared to forget that this year marks the 40th anniversary of that boardroom coup when the Dynamos players, led by Shepherd Murape, toppled the Morrison Sifelani leadership and took over the running of the club, bringing in young blood into this institution.

They won virtually everything on offer that year, in 1976, and having just won three league titles between ’62 and ’75, DeMbare went on to win 18 more league titles since then.

Life has to move on!

TO GOD BE THE GLORY!

Come on Warriors!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Khamaldinhoooooooooooooooo!

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Chat with me on Facebook, follow me on Twitter @Chakariboy, interact with me on Viber or read my material in The Southern Times or on www.sportszone.co.zw. The authoritative ZBC weekly television football magazine programme, Game Plan, is back on air and you can interact with me and the legendary Charles “CNN” Mabika every Monday evening.

IN a year’s time, God willing, I will mark the 20th anniversary of my first dance covering the Nations Cup finals — breaking new ground for local football writers when I landed in the Burkinabe capital of Ouagadougou in ’98.Almost two decades have passed, but memories of the seismic shock that greeted me on arrival for that tour of duty, a haphazard city where motor cycles outnumbered cars on dusty and chaotic streets where mayhem reigned supreme, have refused to be washed away by the passage of time.

I had been to West Africa before, with the Warriors in Ghana and the Cote d’Ivoire commercial capital of Abidjan, but all my reservations about what I saw there, nothing had prepared me for what I would walk into in Ouagadougou, sights and sounds that appeared to come from a bygone era, a place that time seemed to have forgotten and left behind.

But, for all the homesickness that overwhelmed me from the very first day I spent in Ouagadougou, every hour that looked like an eternity, I had to resign myself to the reality that this strange French-speaking country was going to be my adopted home, for virtually the whole month of February, on a mission where I would be covering my first AFCON finals.

It was a trailblazing mission, for no Zimbabwean football writer had covered a Nations Cup finals before, but I embraced the challenges this tough and tricky adventure presented and luckily for me, a fresh-faced South African forward Benni McCarthy, having just emerged from the innocence of his teenage years, used the tournament to explode into the real deal, scoring seven goals, as he powered Bafana Bafana into the final, providing me with a number of story lines to pursue in his relentless destruction of defensive shields.

Benni was duly named the player of the tournament, at the young age of 20, and when — half-a-dozen years later — I saw him play a big part in inspiring Portuguese giants FC Porto win the European Champions League, scoring four goals along the way, including two in the 2-1 victory over Manchester United in a Round of 16 match in Portugal, I felt proud to have been there when he made the giant leap into the big time back at that AFCON finals in Burkina Faso.

But, for me, the enduring image of that assignment was not Benni or the courageous campaign by that Bafana Bafana team that lost to Egypt in the final of that Nations Cup showcase.

Instead, it would be provided by the hosts, then one of the poorest countries in the world, whose history had been littered by a number of military coups, including one in which the charismatic revolutionary Thomas Sankara, was assassinated and deposed from power just 11 years before my arrival.

The way that football galvanised this poverty-stricken nation, during that unforgettable month for its people, patching the differences inflicted by years of mistrust and military coups, making them find pride in their identity as Burkinabe, irrespective of the challenges, economic or otherwise, they faced, as their national team made it all the way to the semi-finals of that AFCON tourney, is something that I will never, never, ever forget. A country that only had three stadiums, barely good enough to host the Nations Cup finals, with two in the capital Ouagadougou and one in the second city of Bobo-Dioulasso, with none of three grounds big enough to have a capacity of more than 40 000, embedded itself in the beauty of football and for a month, the people forgot their challenges as they enjoyed a merry dance with their Stallions that had to be seen to be believed.

Along the way I picked a number of French words, enough to make me engage in conversations, either with my motorcycle taxi driver or the people of both Ouagadougou and Bobo-Dioulasso, enmeshed myself into their food and drinks, from the zoomkoom to the degue, dolo and yamaku and of course, to their Brakina beer.

It was such an intoxicating spectacle, providing such powerful sights and sounds that by the end of my assignment I simply didn’t want to leave, having been converted from the rebellious one who had arrived as a reluctant visitor, desperate for this nightmare to end very quickly so I could quickly return to the comforts of home sweet home, into one of these proud Burkinabe.

I had arrived in Burkina Faso believing I knew the power of football, thanks to what my beloved Dream Team had done to the people of this country, but as I left Ouagadougou, I was brutally honest to myself that I had been lying to my inner soul all along and that really dominated my thoughts on that long journey back home.

Enriched by what I saw in my unforgettable one-month adventure in that West African nation, a landlocked country with a small population just like my beloved Zimbabwe, I came to realise that this game was far much more than I had ever imagined — a very, very powerful tool for national unity, for national pride and a successful national football team was priceless in, like that Castle Lager advert, making sure that it all comes together.

THE STALLIONS WHICH CHARMED A NATION WEIGHED DOWN BY COUNTLESS CHALLENGES

Back in the ‘90s, the Burkina Faso national football team, known by their fans as The Stallions, were not as powerful, a unit, as they have become today.

By the time I arrived in Ouagadougou, the Stallions had only qualified for two Nations Cup finals, a pathetic return in a region dominated by some of the continent’s best football nations, and Burkina Faso had not even won a match at the showcase with the country losing all their three matches at their first appearance in 1978 to Nigeria (2-4), Zambia (0-2) and Ghana (0-3).

They had to wait another 18 years, until 1996, for them to make a second appearance at the AFCON finals and, just like in 1978, they were a mismatch for the opposition in South Africa as they again lost all their three group matches to Zambia (1-5), Sierra Leone (1-2) and Algeria (1-2).

In six group matches, at the AFCON finals, they had conceded 18 goals and scored only five.

To say expectations for them to do well, when the tournament came home in 1998, were high, would be a blatant lie and when they went down 0-1 to Cameroon in the opening match of that Nations Cup finals, those who felt this was a stage too high for them, appeared justified.

But, somehow, the Stallions turned it around and beat Algeria, a team our Warriors will take on in their opening match in Gabon, 2-1 in their next group game, to keep alive their ’98 Nations Cup campaign. Then a nervy 1-0 win over Guinea in their final group game saw them book a ticket into the quarter-finals of an AFCON tourney they were hosting where Tunisia, another team our boys will take on in their Gabonese adventure, lay in wait for the Stallions.

Now, the whole country was firmly behind them and time appeared to stand still when that match, which ended 1-1, spilled into a penalty shootout and after what looked like an eternity, in which the country’s emotions went through the full roller-coaster, Burkina Faso triumphed 8-7 to advance to the semi-finals.

It appeared the challenges of that match had sucked out everything these Stallions could offer and they were well beaten, 0-2, by eventual champions Egypt in their semi-final while, after an incredible 4-4 draw against the DRC in the third-place play-off, they only managed to convert one penalty in the shootout as they lost the battle for bronze.

But, not even those two defeats could take away what the Stallions had done for their country and having adopted them as my team, during that tournament, I felt the incredible bout of pride inside me that came from getting a front row seat to the sights and sounds that rocked Burkina Faso that year because of the exploits of their national football team.

And, as I said goodbye to scores of friends I had made on that tour of duty, tears came down, disappointed I was leaving a country that had charmed me to the very end with its wild one-month romantic flirtation with its Stallions, all the reservations I had about their dusty and chaotic capital when I arrived, having been long washed away by memories so beautiful they will last a life-time.

ALMOST 20 YEARS LATER, IT’S OVER TO YOU WARRIORS TO CHARM OUR SPIRITS

I have to reveal that one of the journalists whose writings inspired me to take up this profession was Bill Saidi and it wasn’t about believing what he wrote, but his gift to put his points across, his power of narration and how he played around with the English language.

Bill was a football fan, a die-hard Dynamos supporter, which was probably expected given he had spent the better part of his life in Mbare at a time when DeMbare represented more than just a football club for millions of people in this country, a part of their identity and its fortunes would shape their moods.

He also had a love affair with the Warriors, he told me and it’s sad that just a few days before our boys plunge into a fresh battle at the Nations Cup finals, he was being buried in the northern Zambian city of Kitwe.

Probably it was only fitting that his final resting place should be in the Copperbelt, the heartbeat of Zambian football, the nursery that gave our neighbours the likes of Alex Chola, Peter Kaumba, Godfrey “Ucar” Chitalu and of course, the greatest of them all — Kalusha Bwalya.

He also loved music and played in a band. Tomorrow, when our Warriors plunge into a titanic contest against Algeria, it will be exactly a month after the Ndlovu family — who gave us the immortal King Peter, the greatest Warrior of all-time — quietly marked the fourth anniversary of one of their darkest days when Adam perished in that car crash just outside Victoria Falls.

For me, tomorrow also marks exactly six months when I lost the love of my life, my lovely daughter Mimi, who would have been 22 in eight days’ time, and I should know how the Ndlovus are feeling.

And, as fate might have it, we taking on the Desert Foxes at the AFCON finals, a team that will forever be associated with Adamski given his goal which helped us sink the Algerians at our first AFCON finals appearance in Tunisia in 2004.

On Thursday, as I watched Joel Luphahla, the scorer of the other goal against the Algerians, tell the nation — via the medium of national television — that we needed to be brave tomorrow to stand a chance, I could not resist the tears that flooded my eyes, alone in my office, as I recalled the events of that day in Sousse on February 3, 2004, when he combined with Adamski to give us our first win at this level of the game.

Having had the privilege of a front row seat as a witness to the events in that stadium in Sousse, when our boys came of age, I couldn’t resist the feeling that I badly miss Adamski and the emotions choked me, tears inevitably streamed down my cheeks as I cursed fate, cruel fate and wondered why it had to happen, of all people, to such a Warrior, such a good guy.

Then, as if on cue, when the ZTV news was over, I tuned into my favourite VH1 Classic Channel on DStv, which I usually watch on Thursdays and Fridays nights from my office desk as I go down memory lane to a time when music was golden and — BOOM — they were playing the classic song, “The Living Years”, written by British rocker Mike Rutherford and recorded with his band, The Mechanics.

And, there I was, singing along to the song’s rich lyrics, “I wasn’t there that morning, when my Brother (here read Adamski, of course) passed away, I didn’t get to tell him, All the things I had to say, I think I caught his spirit, Later that same year, I’m sure I heard his echo, In my baby’s new born tears, I just wish I could have told him in the living years, Say it loud, say it clear, You can listen as well as you hear, It’s too late when we die, To admit we don’t see eye to eye.”

Two years ago, Rutherford wrote a moving article in the British daily newspaper, The Guardian, telling the world how he came to write that classic and personal song and what it meant to him.

“As a teenager in the late 1960s, the last thing I wanted was to be like my father, he was a retired naval captain who’d fought in the Second World War; I’d just recorded my first album with Genesis, had hair down to my elbows and lived in jeans and a military jacket from Kensington market that smelled like an entire battalion,” Rutherford wrote.

“I was born in 1950 and was 18 months old when Dad went off to the Korean War. I didn’t see him much of him as I grew up — by the time he came home from work I’d be in bed and then I was packed off to prep school at the age of seven.

“My life changed when I married Angie in 1977 and moved to the country to start a family. But a band is a very selfish being and two days after Angie came home from the hospital with our first child, I flew to the Netherlands for three months to work on a new record.

“As time went on, I realised I was following in my Dad’s footsteps; like him I was often away from home and touring the world surrounded by a huge crew, only he had medals and I had gold discs. Then one night in 1986, when I was on tour in America, the phone rang at 3am. Dad was dead.

“My biggest regret was not telling him what a wonderful man he’d been in my life.”

We seem to take a lot of things for granted, as we go through the motions of life and we didn’t tell Benjamin Nkonjera he was special, we forgot to tell Willard Mashinkila-Khumalo, in his living years, that he was a unique talent and we didn’t tell Francis Shonhayi, when he lived, he was simply out of this world.

But we not alone in this, which sounds a very, very foolish excuse to make.

The most wonderful gift our Warriors could give to the Ndlovu family, in particular, a number of our fallen football heroes who are not with us today, whom we never told how special they were in their living years and nation that has stuck with this team even when this team was staggering in the darkness is — just like the Stallions in ’98 — to have a good run in Gabon.

And, just like the Burkinabe when I arrived in their country in ’98, we have a lot of regrets, we have suffered a lot of pain in the course of our living years, but if the Warriors can play as well as the Stallions back in ’98, with both spirit and conviction, I can tell you we will find the kind of joy we never believed existed.

And the likes of Adamski, Nkonjera and Sandura can finally rest in eternal peace.

TO GOD BE THE GLORY!

Come on Warriors!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Khamaldinhooooooooooooooooo!

Text Feedback – 0772545199

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Email – robsharuko@gmail.com

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Chat with me on Facebook, follow me on Twitter @Chakariboy, interact with me on Viber or read my material in The Southern Times or on www.sportszone.co.zw. The authoritative ZBC weekly television football magazine programme, Game Plan, is back on air and you can interact with me and the legendary Charles “CNN” Mabika every Monday evening.

THE beauty, when it was paraded on that Sunday night under the glare of the Franceville moonlight, was something to behold, images so beautiful, so charming, so intoxicating it made all of us very, very proud to be members of this blessed nation of indomitable Warriors. Khama Billiat running the Algerian defence ragged, unlucky not to score what would have been two of the best goals seen at the Nations Cup finals, the first a venomous volley of remarkable purity that was, sadly, touched onto the post by an inspired ’keeper who appeared to have bet his life that, for all people, he would not let our golden boy get one past him.

Then, in the second half, a trademark burst into space, some trickery, a Stanley Matthews-like drop of the shoulder as if he was going to the left and, then, without breaking stride, going right, leaving his markers in a spin as he created a pocket of space before opening fire only for that ‘keeper to somehow find both courage and flexibility to make the right connection, with his big right hand, and push the ball out for a corner.

Of course, it came at a huge cost, with the Algerian ’keeper being injured as he performed those heroics for his country and he missed his nation’s second game, which they lost to Tunisia, because of the damage that Khama had inflicted on him in that bruising head-to-head contest where neither party was prepared to give an inch in a titanic battle for supremacy.

Sammy Kuffour, the Ghanaian legend, formerly of Bayern Munich, famous for tears on that goalline, as he cried for his club and his shattered dreams, after Manchester United had somehow risen from the dead in that unforgettable ’99 UEFA Champions League final, to score twice in time added on and become kings of Europe for the first time in exactly 31 years, even said Khamaldinho was as good as the best of the African players today.

Oh, yes, the man who has become a SuperSport pundit, who celebrated wildly in the studio every time we scored in that game against Algeria, turning himself into a favourite of millions of football fans in this country, even said Khama had been blessed by the football gods who gave Nigerian playmaker, Austin Okocha, so good they had to nickname him twice “Jay-Jay”, the gifts that made him a superstar.

Do you remember Okocha, of course, my Game Plan colleague Charles Mabika, will never forget him after he charmed him so much with his wizardry when he came here with the Super Eagles and his portrayal of the midfielder didn’t go down well, with some people it ended up having some repercussions for the man who calls himself CNN and seemingly, of course, never changes an Afro hairstyle that is a throwback to the Swinging Sixties.

Kuda Mahachi stroking home that beauty, even though my colleague Steve Vickers — commentating on SuperSport — somehow appeared not to see the quality of the execution, appearing to blame the ’keeper for a slow reaction than seeing he had been fooled by the curl in that shot, and a nerveless Nyasha Mushekwi sending him the wrong side from the penalty spot.

Yes, we deserved more, far much more, Cuthbert Malajila, being overwhelmed by the instincts which stalk many strikers and going for glory when a simple push of the ball into the path of an unmarked Mahachi would have secured national glory and a cool $6 000 in bonuses for every Warrior on this Gabonese adventure.

But, even though there were some misgivings, including a golden chance to slay one African giant on the big stage of the Nations Cup, where we would have proved beyond any reasonable doubt that we had come of age, it was still a beautiful story and it evoked immense pride, among us, for being Zimbabweans, being Warriors.

For historians, the lovely images from Gabon were probably a throwback to that day in November 1855, when the Scottish missionary David Livingstone, then a 27-year-old daredevil on a mission to see what lay in the interior of Africa, cast his eyes on the beauty and majesty of one of the seven wonders of the world, what would later be known around the world as the Victoria Falls.

“After twenty minutes’ sail from Kalai we came in sight, for the first time, of the columns of vapour appropriately called ‘smoke,’ rising at a distance of five or six miles, exactly as when large tracts of grass are burned in Africa,” he noted.

“Five columns now arose, and, bending in the direction of the wind, they seemed placed against a low ridge covered with trees; the tops of the columns at this distance appeared to mingle with the clouds. They were white below, and higher up became dark, so as to simulate smoke very closely.

“The whole scene was extremely beautiful; the banks and islands dotted over the river are adorned with sylvan vegetation of great variety of colour and form . . . no one can imagine the beauty of the view from anything witnessed in England.

“It had never been seen before by European eyes BUT SCENES SO LOVELY MUST HAVE BEEN GAZED UPON BY ANGELS IN THEIR FLIGHT.”

AND, FOUR DAYS LATER, CAME THE REALITY CHECK

But, four days after our heroics against Algeria, came the brutality of the reality check, a ruthless reminder that we still have some way to go before we start fooling ourselves that we are now part of the elite football nations on the continent, that we still have a lot to do before we can claim membership of the game’s aristocracy and there is still a significant gap between us and the most powerful football nations in Africa.

Senegal, the Lions of Teranga, the country ranked as the number one football nation on the continent, provided that reality check as they squeezed life out of us in Franceville on Thursday, at times toying with us as they denied us possession with some crisp movement, support of the man on the ball, stunning comfort in possession that made us chase shadows for long periods and relentless pressing whenever we had the ball to force the mistakes that we made in abundance.

This was football at a higher level and, while it’s always difficult to accept that, especially when it comes to national team contests where pride and nationalistic bravado usually cloud the brutality of reality, which explains why Botswana will still have some of their citizens telling you they will win in a football battle against either Germany or Argentina, at times it’s important that we do that.

Because, doing so will help us in our inquest, will ensure that the post-mortem will be done in a sober environment, rather than one dominated by toxicity, and we can embrace our weaknesses and find ways of how we can confront such giants as and when we come across them in the future.

There isn’t any shame in losing to Senegal, this Senegal, especially when the Lions of Teranga have brought their A-game, which they usually don’t to the frustration of their fans but, which, once in a while, they can put together, as was the case in that Franceville battle against us when, like that Castle advert, it all came together.

Man-for-man, it was a mismatch, and where the Senegalese could throw four players straight from top Premiership clubs, including a Liverpool team that is fighting for its first title since 1990 and splashed a cool US$35 million on one of the Lions of Teranga to complete the most expensive transfer in the history of African football, we had a team led by a player who would have done wonders, for his career, if he gets signed by a Belgian team.

Where the Senegalese had a 21-year-old midfielder Keita Balde Diao, widely considered the best emerging talent in African football, who is valued at more than US$30 million, was schooled in the famous Barcelona youth teams, plays for Italian giants Lazio and could be on his way to Manchester United, Real Madrid or AC Milan soon, all our hopes were on a 26-year-old Sundowns forward who we hope will one day get out of the mediocrity of Super Diski.

Where the Lions of Teranga had a 25-year-old centreback who plays for the Napoli that used, in the past, to feature a certain Diego Maradona, and who is playing regularly in the top competitions of Europe and is now valued at US$80 million, with his move from Italy set to break all records ever for a defender, we had a 31-year-old defensive pillar who plays in the Czech Republic.

Not that Costa Nhamoinesu is bad, of course, he is very, very good, and one of the best to represent us in that heart of defence and, when called upon on Thursday, he delivered, including clearing from the line, but Kalidou Koulibaly, who plays for Napoli, is in a different class.

So, before we tear each other apart and start blaming our coach for this and that, and blaming our players for this and that, the starting point should be an admission that the Senegalese, man-for-man are better than us and we would have needed a monumental effort, and hoping also to catch them on their off-day, for us to win on Thursday.

It can happen, that is the beauty of football, but even Iceland — who charmed the world by eliminating England from Euro 2016, finally met their match and were hammered by France in the next round while Leicester City, who won the English Premiership last year, could be relegated this season.

Yes, on reflection, our coach could have done other things differently, and starting with Matthew Rusike, ahead of Evans Rusike, appeared to be a mistake and for his men to keep lying deep, against such good opposition, was attracting trouble.

Our boys, too, could have fought better, but it’s difficult to face two good opponents, in a matter of just four days, and keep producing at a very, very high level, especially in those conditions.

What we should celebrate is that we have made significant strides, we have moved from the darkness when losing to Tanzania, in the preliminary round of qualifiers for a place at the AFCON finals was something that was in order, when spending a decade staggering outside the festival where the continent’s best football nations feast every two years was something that was acceptable.

Refreshingly, we now have players who can be named, among the best XI footballers on the continent, as was the case with Khama last year, thanks to his heroics in the colours of Mamelodi Sundowns and the Warriors, and the entire nation feels cheated, and screams we have been robbed, when he is not given the award of being the best footballer plying his trade in Africa, as was the case in Nigeria recently.

And, when all of Southern Africa, including former Nations Cup winners Zambia and South Africa, fall by the wayside, blown away by a tsunami of failure and they fail to make it to Gabon, we refuse to be sucked by that wave of mediocrity and find ourselves standing tall, beating our chests, telling everyone who cares to listen that we are not representing our beautiful country, but all of southern Africa at this AFCON showcase.

We also need to believe that while we lost the battle against Senegal, we haven’t lost the war, and we can beat Tunisia on Monday and still qualify.

For us to start doubting our coach, start doubting Khama as a one-game wonder, when even Mahrez failed to sparkle in his second game, is an insult to our ambassadors and shows that we are not true football fans but just people who want to ride on the wave of success even when we know that in this game you can’t always win.

Let’s cheer our boys because, if there was a time they needed our support, then it’s now.

Don’t worry Pasuwa, don’t worry Khama, don’t worry Tatenda, remember these people of little faith even doubted Jesus our Lord.

TO GOD BE THE GLORY!

Come on Warriors!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Khamaldinhoooooooooooooooooo!

Text Feedback – 0719545199 (I have migrated to One Fusion)

WhatsApp Messenger – 0719545199

Email – robsharuko@gmail.com

Skype – sharuko58

Chat with me on Facebook, follow me on Twitter @Chakariboy, interact with me on Viber or read my material in The Southern Times or on www.sportszone.co.zw. The authoritative ZBC weekly television football magazine programme, Game Plan, is back on air and you can interact with me and the legendary Charles “CNN” Mabika every Monday evening.