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Evans Gwekwerere scored a goal for the archives, into words and try and help those who were not there see a very good picture of what happened in that magical moment.
There was a flick with his header to ghost past his marker and zoom into space, wide on the left channel, two steps that followed and, with all the venom in his right boot, he fired a shot that was as powerful as it was sweet that flew past the Shabanie Mine goalkeeper.
It was a moment to cherish and, as Rufaro rose to salute Gwekwerere, I was struggling for words to find how best I was going to put that event into context for the benefit of those who were not at the stadium.
Precisely that is my job, what I have been doing for the past 20 years, and I have to be honest that during that period I have seen far better goals than Gwekwerere’s masterpiece.
Peter Ndlovu slaloming past the entire Bafana Bafana defence to score a wonder goal in that 4-1 win for the Warriors will always be a special goal, one of the best we will ever see, and its beauty was magnified by the context of both the arena, where it was delivered, and the opponents.
But in a period where we have generally struggled to find real quality, when the bulk of what we see is drained from a fountain of mediocrity, it is important to also highlight the rare occasions when something special happens. And Gwekwerere’s goal at Rufaro on Saturday was really special.
So on Monday night I tried to find the best words to describe the move, and the excellence of execution, and even though in the end I was pretty convinced that I had done the best possible job, it was still clear there was something that was missing from my description.
You can’t capture everything, in written words, as you try to describe a situation and that is the reason why people will always go to the stadiums to pay their money, and watch the matches live, because there is a real difference to seeing something happening live and reading about something that happened.
But, as I battled for words that night, it dawned on me that the tragedy was that ZBC, the country’s national broadcaster, was not there at Rufaro for its television cameras to capture the moment and for its network to broadcast it to the nation either, when it was happening, or as a delayed transmission.
It struck me that ZBC cameras have been missing from all the Premiership matches this season since Delta Beverages entered into a deal with the PSL that has seen Castle Lager return as the flagship sponsor of the league championship.
No cameras to record the matches live or to record interviews with the coaches and the players, for broadcasting, on the network’s news channels.
I felt for the poor man in Chakari who had been hoping to see his favourite Dynamos players on national television but has somehow been frozen out of the action.
That man probably doesn’t know how Devon Chafa looks, even though he has read so much about him since the season opened, and it’s a pretty good bet that, should they meet in the street, they will be strangers who won’t care for the other.
I felt for the poor man in Muzarabani, who certainly can’t afford to come to Rufaro every week to watch his favourite CAPS United in action, but had been hoping to watch the players turning on the style from the comfort of his home.
That man certainly doesn’t know how Simba Sithole looks, even though he has scored five goals for Makepekepe in three league matches, and for everything that he has read about the teenage striker in the newspapers, there is still a gulf between the fan and the player. I felt for the poor fellow in Lupane, who had been hoping to see the players who have replaced Zeph and Joel Ngodzo in the Bosso line-up from the comfort of his home on national television, but – three games into the season where his team has played twice at Barbourfields – it hasn’t happened.
As I was battling with my thoughts, I then heard the European Champions League signature tune on ZTV, that fine song that tells us the real battles are about to begin, where men will be separated from the boys.
And, as the song began to fade, an announcement followed that my national television station would be broadcasting live the Champions League quarter-final tie between Manchester United and Chelsea at Old Trafford where, as we now know, the men were separated from the boys. So that was it!
ZTV would be beaming the events from Fortress Old Trafford live into the living rooms of the poor old folks in Chakari, Muzarabani and Lupane but had not even cared to broadcast the highlights of the domestic Premiership tie between CAPS United and Shabanie where Gwekwerere had scored a wonder goal.
There was nothing on national television on Wednesday as Desmond Maringwa turned back the hands of time, with a performance that was as vintage as it was refreshing and defining, as Dynamos bounced back from a nightmarish start to their league championship campaign to beat moneybags FC Platinum 2-0 for their first league win of the season.
Nothing to capture that moment, for national television, when he smuggled his beautiful pass through the FC Platinum defence, leaving them in a daze, and freed the hyperactive Martin Vengesayi who ran clear to score Dynamos’ first league goal in 187 minutes of action.
Nothing to capture that moment, for national television, when his silky skills fooled Bekhi Ncube, who was on another planet as the ball was flicked over his frame, and – as the FC Platinum midfielder recovered his senses – all he could do was to illegally stop the move with his hand.
Nothing to capture that moment, for national television, when after substitute Patrick Khumbula had made a storming run down the right channel, and drawn the ball back into the area, Gazza was there – after defying his 33 years to run half the length of the field in the last minute and provide the reinforcement in attack – to sweep home the insurance goal.
Nothing to capture that moment, for national television, when Lloyd Mutasa released all the emotions that he had bottled inside his body, during three weeks of a nightmare when his team had been humiliated in Algiers and defeated by both Kiglon and Motor Action, celebrating as if he had turned into a player once again.
Nothing to capture the sights and sounds, for national television, as the Dynamos fans rose to salute Maringwa, and celebrate their team’s first win, and all the sub-plots that followed, including Vietnam’s orders for the departing CAPS United fans, who had come to support FC Platinum, not to abandon their adopted team.

Just As If Nothing Happened
All that we saw on national television this week was Wayne Rooney turning on the style, in that majestic performance at Old Trafford, with his weighted passes that kept finding his colleagues in space and how he kept confusing the ageing Chelski defence by dropping deep now and again.
In the week that our national television station showed us live pictures, as an ageless Ryan Giggs defied his age and turned on a midfield show that was very decisive in Manchester United’s win at Old Trafford, there was nothing from the TV station, which we call our own, about how Maringwa played at Rufaro on Sunday.
In the week that our national television station showed us live pictures of Chicharito scoring a decisive goal at Old Trafford, as his pace and industry proved a handful to John Terry, there was nothing from the TV station, which we call our won, about how Gwekwerere scored a better goal at Rufaro on Saturday.
In the week that our national television station showed us live pictures of Park Ji-Sung scoring the killer goal for Manchester United at Old Trafford, as he squeezed life out of the Chelski revival sparked by Didier’s sublime goal, there was nothing from the TV station, which we call our own, about how Stephen Alimenda scored a beauty at Rufaro on Saturday.
In the week that our national television station showed us live pictures of delirious Manchester United fans, basking in the glory of their team’s sensational and deserved victory over Chelski that reminded Abramovich that you can’t just buy the Champions League with billions, there was nothing, from the TV station – which we call our own – about the sights and sounds from the CAPS fans at Rufaro on Saturday.
In the week that our national television station showed us live pictures of Chelski fans in dreamland, hoping for a comeback that never materialised, after Drogba had scored that beauty of a goal at Old Trafford, there was nothing, from the TV station that we call our own, about the sights and sounds of the Dynamos fans at Rufaro on Sunday.
In the week that we saw all the analysis of the events at Old Trafford on Tuesday night, on our national television, there was nothing from Charles Mabika (I know this is tough on you CNN but you are the face of football there), and his colleagues, to discuss the events that had unfolded at Rufaro and Barbourfields.
No pictures, either live or delayed, no analysis – JUST NOTHING.

As if it never happened.
As if Gwekwerere didn’t score a goal, whose beauty had to be seen to be believed, as CAPS United crushed Shabanie 4-0 on Saturday.
As if Gazza didn’t turn on a vintage show, whose beauty had to be seen to be believed, as Dynamos showed the moneybags of FC Platinum that they still need a lot of work to do if their dream is to conquer this nation. As if there were no fans at Rufaro on Saturday, as if there were no fans at Rufaro on Sunday, as if nothing happened at Barbourfields on Sunday where Luke Masomere took a band of players who had rebelled against the club’s leadership all week and gallantly fought for a point.
As if Masomere and his men’s fine battle at Barbourfields didn’t mean a thing, even though they had pooled their resources – for the sake of our football – to make the trip to Bulawayo and fight for a point, even in the week where most of the players had not trained. As if Hwange never made the long trip from the Colliery for a Gwanzura date with Kiglon where Rodwell Dhlakama and his men battled to a point, to take their tally to four in three games, and a rather solid start for a team that probably never thought it would be playing Premiership football this year.
As if Blue Ribbon Foods didn’t produce another sensational result, to show that they mean business this season, as they won their second game – out of three – and took their points tally to seven, out of nine, and give Misheck Chidzambwa reason to believe.
As if the Wild Boys of Shooting Stars’ poor start to the season didn’t get any worse, after their third defeat in as many matches when they fell to Blue Ribbon, leaving Joel Sengeredo to wonder whether Gishon Ntini was the real problem when they nosedived to those two straight defeats. As if nothing happened. And, so, nothing was recorded. You must be kidding folks.

We Won’t Be There When It Happens
I don’t know why ZTV have suddenly decided not to broadcast live local football matches and the speculation is that they want to be paid a certain sum, by the sponsors of the league, for the production costs.
But ZTV, just like The Herald, have a responsibility to their viewers and readers, in this case the people of Zimbabwe, who invest their trust in these institutions to be there to cover events, and record proceedings, for the people to know what happened.
We all love English football and my passion for my beloved Manchester United is boundless.
We all love the Uefa Champions League because we know that there is real quality there and the whole world can barely wait for the El Classico showdown between Real Madrid and Barcelona for a place in the final, a possible date with the grand old lady, managed by a wily old Scot, that is as solid as football teams will ever be.
We all love watching Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo because we know they are the true superstars of the world game and there is always something beautiful that will come from them every time they take to the field. But charity begins at home, someone told me a long time ago. We have our own league, which still attracts a sizeable interest in the local population, and we have our own stars and, even though they are not at the same level as Messi or Ronaldo, they are all that we have and all that we can support.
When the local fans go to Rufaro and Barbourfields, they certainly don’t fool themselves that they will see something like what Messi would have produced in a Barca shirt the previous night.
They are an honest bunch, who know the shortcomings of their local players when it comes to technical issues, and they go to Rufaro because they know Gwekwerere will probably score a wonder goal and Gazza will probably turn on a blinding midfield show.
The national media in this country has a responsibility to create heroes out of those players who are plying their trade at home because they are all that we have and, if national television doesn’t broadcast their games, then who is going to do that?
When they switch on to ZTV, they expect to see something – when it comes to the sporting segments – about themselves but all that they get these days is Messi, Ronaldo, Rooney etc, etc.
The same Messi who is being followed, step by step, by Catalan television, the same Messi who is being followed by Sky TV, the same Messi who is being followed by CNN, the same Messi who is being followed by Eurosport, the same Messi who is being followed by ESPN, the same Messi who is being followed by you name it. The same Ronaldo who is being followed, step by step, by all the television channels in Portugal, all the television channels in Spain, all the television channels in England, you name it.
The same Rooney who is followed, virtually in every step that he makes, by all the television channels in the world and on Mars, if ever they are broadcasting something on that planet.
So these fellows have it all.
What about Gwekerere?
He is certainly not wanted by SuperSport because he is not of any news value to them.
He is certainly unwanted by SkySport because their viewers will not only understand why the channel needs to broadcast issues about a poor Zimbabwean footballer, but they will also struggle to pronounce his surname even if they get interested in what they are seeing.
He has only ZTV to bank on, to capture those finest moments when his magic shines brightly, but sadly, as we all saw on Saturday, ZBC were not there for Gwekwerere when it was happening. And they were not there for the poor fan in Chakari, who expected to see the highlights on the main news at 8pm, when it was happening at Rufaro. The sad part is that both Gwekwerere and the poor fan have no alternative to turn to and they can continue to count their losses.

Why ZTV Sport Is Strategic
Sport, the world over, is driven by television and TV networks pay huge sums of money just to get the rights to broadcast material that belongs to the leagues, Fifa, ICC, IRB etc.
It’s a lucrative business and some of us pay a cool US$60 plus, every month, just to keep our Dstv subscriptions alive, so that we can watch all the sport happening around the world in the comfort of our homes.
We are able to watch Formula One, as it happens in Singapore, and we were able to follow the One Day International Cricket series between Bangladesh and Australia, ball by ball, as it happened.
We can set the alarm to wake us up at 3am, so that we can see a live heavyweight boxing encounter, happening in the United States and – thanks to satellite television – we know who is Rooney, who is Ronaldo, who is Messi, who is Floyd Mayweather, who is Mike Tyson, who is Michael Jordan and who is Tiger Woods.
Every day last week, from Thursday, we would sleep late because we were following the Masters, live from Augusta, Georgia, United States, in the comfort of our homes and banking for Woods to win it again and finding consolation, when he didn’t, that the winner was South African.
I believe ZTV have an obligation to play a similar role for the local sportsmen because newspapers can only go a certain distance. It’s the television images that make the lasting impression and ZTV have a big role to play to help the people know who this Simba Sithole is , who this Denver Mukamba is and who this Archie Gutu is.
We must be the only nation in the world, right now, whose national football team plays a Nations Cup qualifier away from home and, still, we don’t see it being broadcast live on national television.
Even when our boys complained that they were robbed in Mali by the referees, we didn’t see our national television trying to secure footage from that game, so that the people will make a judgment, and – without television – everything about that game remains speculative. Even when Dynamos came back from Algeria, claiming that the referees had robbed them, we didn’t see our national television network going all the way to try and secure a recording of that game so that the people, its loyal viewers, would be able to judge for themselves.
Without that helping hand from television, everything being said about that game remains speculative.
In my travels around the world, in the course of duty, I have realised how television channels battle just to get the latest pictures, either of breaking news, or of big events.
Our domestic Premiership, as poor as it might be, is a very big event and ZTV have a strategic role to play.
The ball is in their court but they need to know that they have a responsibility to the people of this country.
Every time when we have either the national team or Dynamos playing away in the Nations Cup or Champions League, I get scores of phone calls from people asking whether the game will be screened live on television.
Every time my answer is the same and I tell them that I don’t know and the only guarantee I can give is that the report would be in The Herald or The Sunday Mail the following day.

The Gospel According To Milton
By Milton Nyamadzawo
If you are sick and need a cure, you do not visit the Human Resources practitioner, but you visit the doctor for treatment and why should Zimbabwean football be different?
With Africa celebrating its first Fifa World Cup, where Spain were crowned the world champions, Zimbabwean football remain in a state of predicament owing to a myriad of factors.
What do we need to do to change the face of Zimbabwe football? We lost to Mali and we have a game coming at home against Mali and, suddenly, we have all slept in a winter slumber and we expect Mapeza to deliver a miracle come the day.
The Warriors, our flagship team, have sunk to their lowest Fifa/Coca-Cola rankings, at 129, as compared to South Africa, who were in the nineties recently when they failed to qualify for the 2010 Nations Cup, but have moved into number 39.
There is definitely a lack of strategy to football administration, or stopping its decline, and that’s why we don’t see any direction or success.
Our current football administrators, fair enough, do love the game, and love to administer it but their technical knowledge is limited and they do not see the need to employ real professionals to help them in the day-in-day-out running of the club and related matters.
Age-cheating wizards have seized the control of several youth teams and this is killing African football and Zimbabwe is no exception. They have taken advantage of desperate kids, equally desperate parents and corrupt football officials who will do anything for a win.
It’s a cancer that is prevalent in sub-Saharan Africa – where there have been big cases of players like Nigeria’s Phillip Osondu and Ghana’s Odartey Lamptey.
Medhat Shalaby, media officer of the Egyptian FA, pointedly accused the big West African teams recently for being deeply involved in this.
“Age cheating has become a cancer to African football,” Shalaby charged. “Junior tournaments are running the risk of being inconsequential to the development of African football. Countries like Nigeria, Ghana and Cameroon were fond of fielding over-aged players in international youth tournaments.”
Dutch journalist Arnold Pannenborg, a commentator on African football, has slammed the continent’s federations for complicity in the scandal.
“Many, if not all African countries ‘cheat’ with the age of their youth players. We don’t have to pretend that it doesn’t happen because really, it does. And a lot too.
“Several high-placed officials within the various associations and the ministries have acknowledged that they are deliberately creating ‘football ages’, so that older players are still eligible for the U-20 and U-17 teams.”
African federations’ reliance on this quick fix has meant that they have refused to take the necessary steps to develop youth football on the continent, thus denying Africa her real potential.
Cheating delays youth development and stunts technical growth. Players are being taught skills long after their formative years and this has led to most African players suffering on the big stage from poor technique, despite having lavish flair.
The bigger concern for me is how it impacts on the progress of society. You cannot expect officials that preside over this mess to then run fair and transparent administrations, neither can you expect the kids involved to grow up and understand fairness.
For me, I don’t care if we never win another youth tournament again, I care instead that we win at the senior event. But ultimately I care more that we live in a fair and just Africa.

Europeanisation of African Football – We need a home grown coach
In Zimbabwe , we need a local coach who understands our culture and the development of the local game. Yes, we may need to have foreign influence but an understudy will be key, look at South Africa, it’s a case in point. What have all the foreign coaches brought to Zimbabwe, save for Fabisch?
Marcel Desailly, a Ghanaian who played for France, said this: “We have lost something. You once had African players who wanted to run with the ball and enjoy themselves. Now there is a more European style, less creativity, less fantasy.”
Berti Vogts, the former Nigeria coach, put it another way. “If football in Nigeria was organised as in Germany, the team would be unbeatable,” he said. “Even Brazil would have to watch out.”
In any case, the evidence from Ajax – once upheld as the model of youth development – is that you cannot simply impose European knowhow on Africa, as Ajax attempted to do when they marched into Cape Town.
The product – the club, Ajax Cape Town – has only yielded them one player of note. Feyenoord have not taken one player from their academy in Ghana.
My prognosis of the Zimbabwean patient is that he is suffering from a chronic illness and the symptoms are giving me an increasing cause for concern.
Football is not a sustainable business in Zimbabwe and clubs are increasingly buckling under the weight of debt and some cannot even afford to pay policemen for their services at matches. Why, and for how long, should the Warriors continue to be funded by the Zifa president Cuthbert Dube? Where are the companies to sponsor the Warriors – Zimplats, Econet and others who operate in our country? However, companies want guarantees that their brand will not be tarnished and have we done enough to give such confidence?
Have we done that even under the current Zifa leadership?
We seem to be working on the false assumption that a soft debt will never become a hard debt and we seem to be allowing the wage bill to escalate at a faster rate than the rise in revenue.

The Cure for Zimbabwe Football
Today the local league in Zimbabwe has suffered so much it has virtually turned into a shell.
Lots of the kids walk around the streets of Harare sporting Manchester United, Barcelona, Chelsea or Arsenal jerseys.
They barely know the names of the local clubs in the Zimbabwean league, let alone the star players.
The devastating effect of this is that the nation is no longer producing home-made quality star players because kids are not dreaming anymore.
And we know every great athlete started out by dreaming of achieving greater heights, myself and my generation included.
How many of our school kids know Kiglon or Blue Ribbon? Yes, they may know Chicken Inn because of the food but not the football club. We need to assemble qualified soccer professionals, native and foreign, to diagnose, in detail, our shortcomings and map out a plan conducive and in line with our peculiar society to diagnose our ailing country’s football.
Only after doing this can we start effectively appointing people to strategic development positions with qualities similar and complementary to our plan.
It is counterproductive to appoint a completely physically-oriented coach for a Zimbabwean national team that is technical, offensive and flair-oriented and has artists like Mukamba and Gutu to drive the Warriors’ engine room.
Our chosen objectives and direction will determine who we employ to do what.
Normally, before you turn your car’s ignition, the first thing you do is have a destination in mind.
This will determine the route to ply.
Shouldn’t football job appointments and management be the same?
We need a rejuvenation of the coaching clinics and we should also target the teachers at both primary and secondary schools and bring their coaching knowledge to 2011 standards.
We need to restructure or league and have it run professionally, serviced by fully paid-paid referees who will not try and influence results.
Referees are a problem in Africa and out of the 29 referees at the 2010 Fifa World Cup, only three were from African nations. Nearly 20% of the teams in the World Cup were from Africa, yet only 10% of the referees were African.
This gap between playing standards and refereeing standards is glaring, especially when viewed in the context of the continent.
We need a change in the mentality at Zifa.
People going in to serve should not only see it as a means of enrichment, but also as a job worth doing well, and even if they get payments for that, then so be it.
We need a fixed venue for the national team games. That way our players will feel at home, on these pitches, and not have to discover the quality of the pitches at the same time as their opponents.
The state of the national team is of paramount importance to the development of our youths and local football.
Its fortunes have a multiplier effect on the nation’s football.
If the results are sound, it encourages foreign clubs to buy more players from the national team and the local leagues.
This action, at the same time, brings in hard currency to our people, clubs and eventually finds its way into youth development.
We need a revision of the Zifa Strategic Plan which should incorporate the following:
l Redefine Mission, Objectives and Measures
l Governance and policy plan where we define specific roles and responsibilities to ensure and monitor accountability
l Enable mindset and cultural shift
l Support restoration of Zifa’s image and confidence of the stakeholder community.
l Financial Recovery Plan – reducing non-value added organisational and administrative costs and define short term revenue generation opportunities.
l Revamp the commercialisation and marketing plan.
l Development plan that ensures world class competitiveness of all Zimbabwean national teams, provide the player generation engine to fund longer term commercial growth
Football administration stagnation has largely killed the game in Zimbabwe and we need more football professionals, people with a passion for the game, who should be integrated into the management of the game.
It took Olivier Bierhoff 23 semesters to terminate his management degree on distance learning at the University of Hagen.
Today he is a very successful football manager for the German National Team and this shows that players, too, must prepare themselves for engagement as administrators.
Hard work pays off.
l Milton Nyamadzawo, a human resources expert who works in South Africa, was the team manager of Mwana Africa.

Painful Reality For Roman
Roma Faces Harsh Reality – Steve Howard, Chief Sports Reporter, The Sun
LONDON – THE awful truth finally dawned on Roman Abramovich at Old Trafford last night.
That, in a season where his investment in Chelsea passed the £1billion mark, not even that sort of money can buy the Champions League.
It CAN buy you three Premier League titles, three FA Cups and two League Cups.
But when it comes to the one trophy he covets above all others, it’s class not the riches of this latter-day Croesus that counts. That, in the final analysis, Europe’s leading teams have players every bit as good – and better – than his. And the coaches and tactics to go with them. In the Russian’s first seven seasons, Chelsea reached the semi-final of the Champions League five times – and the final in 2008, against United.
Last season, they crashed out to Jose Mourinho’s Inter Milan in the last 16. They went one round further this time but still it wasn’t good enough. In fact, it’s got to the stage where Chelsea also surrendered both the league title and the FA Cup with scarcely a whimper.
Now Blues owner Abramovich has to face up to stark reality. That this could well have been the last throw of the dice for an ageing team. Maybe even for Chelsea manager Carlo Ancelotti – The Sun
Waiona!
Come on United!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Chicharito!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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