By Evans Dakwa, News Editor
They say football is an emotional sport, and it is indeed as fans, players get engulfed more often than not in the thrills of the World’s most beautiful game, as Christened by one great Brazilian soccer player, the late Pele, and it is understandable. It becomes something else when journalists, who are supposed to be the voice of reason, who are to be leading in laying bare the facts for the consumers of media products, lead in shoving their own opinions down the throats of viewers, readers and listeners.
Germany gaffer Michael Nees took charge of Zimbabwe’s men national football team, the Warriors at the close of July 2024 amid a long drawn out recruitment exercise that was more often than not bungled by ZIFA, since the departure of Brito Baltemar whose short term contract was not renewed at the end of 2023.
Nees has so far presided over four matches and he is so far undefeated, recording back to draws, against Kenya and African giants Cameroon before dealing a hammer blow to neighbours Namibia in back to back victories. This has left the Warriors on the brink of qualification for AFCON 2025. This is relative success in very short space of time especially considering where the Warriors were when Nees took over.
What is surprising though is the raucous noise coming mainly from some of the mainstream sports journalists and bloggers who are seemingly in frantic mode looking for any window of opportunity to build a case against Nees.
Since he took over, the man has barely had two weeks training with the players, he went in one of the initial matches with just one full training session where all the players were available. The travelling is too much considering the team plays home matches away from home. What am I saying? The odds have been heavily staked against Michael Nees and the results he has posted thus far are commendable.
Even the greatest of Managers in the world do make mistakes but it seems some local pundits expect the German gaffer to work miracles and be perfect. Some of the attacks on his persona are unwarranted and reeks of scribes on a mission to make sure he fails.
It is no secret that the country has no football identity, it has no style of play that it can be identified with, it’s known that most of teams in the local league except for a few play one way football, pump it forward with the hope someone will pounce on it. Now if one says that in description of the local game how does it amount to disrespecting the local game?
In his first four games, barring the first game against Namibia, it’s very clear what Michael Nees’ philosophy is, neat, quick passing football that is built with the defence as its foundation. He has transformed a defence that appeared in sixes and sevens against South Africa and Lesotho on June into a formidable one conceding just one goal in four matches. Surely that’s progress there.
In the case of Lloyd Chitembwe vs Michael Nees in respect of Godknows Murwira, surely the issue has been blown out of proportion. First of all it is not the coach who sends letters to clubs requesting the release of the players. It is the Football Association fronted by the team manager in this case Shariff Mussa and he is the one who talks to clubs directly. The player too has a part to play in conjunction with his club. To try and lay the blame for Murwira’s non participation in the Harare Derby on Michael Nees is disingenuous. Granted the public spat was not necessary but it has happened, lessons have been learnt and we move on.
The team is on the brink of qualification, come the next international break in November, back to back matches against Cameroon and Kenya will decide our fate, there is no need for this negative energy that in most cases than not stinks of personal vendettas. Let’s rally behind the Nees project, pinpoint when errors have been made and move on for the greater good of football, the number one sport in Zimbabwe.