‘BIRDS’ ON THE TRESHOLD OF GREATNESS

My dearest readers ... Legend has it that a Tanzanite is a popular blue gemstone that is produced commercially in one small area of northern Tanzania.
It is a stone of the kind of quality that might be purchased by museums, investors, or collectors or used in custom or designer jewellery.

Tanzanite is a blue violet gem beyond rare and described by Time magazine, at one point, to be 1 000 times rarer than diamonds. After irrepressible Mbabane Swallows exploits in the CAF Confederation Cup, overturning a 0-1 first leg defeat and cruising to a 3-0 victory in the second leg, leaving the visiting Tanzanian side, Azam in perpetual agony, one would have assumed a headline, TANZANITE-MARE would have been more appropriate. It would have rightly encapsulated how crest-fallen the Tanzanian side, Azam felt after the gruelling 90 minutes of action at Somhlolo National Stadium on Sunday.

They were spreadeagled on the artificial pitch of the country’s soccer Mecca as if shot by a sniper from as far away as the Mdzimba Mountains.
For a team that gained infamy by booting South Africa’s Premier Soccer League (PSL) outfit, Wits University out of the same competition last year on a 7-3 aggregate score on March 20, they were a pale shadow of themselves.
Perhaps they spent copious amounts of time worried about off-the-field shenanigans, which led to a skirmish with Swallows marshals who were clearly out to defend their territory after the hell ride they were subjected to away in Dar-es-Salaam. They brook no-nonsense. They were in a militant mood, which, in all aspects, embodied the whole team.

The terrier-like performance by the ‘Beautiful Birds’ proved they have the ‘bouncebackability’ (I didn’t just make up this word but I am paraphrasing England’s Arsenal’s under-fire Manager, Arsene Wenger) that Spanish giants, FC Barcelona showed against PSG in the UEFA Champions league’s famous 6-5 aggregate win in the second leg tie, trailing 0-4 from the first leg. Last week, this State-Of-The-Nation-Sports-Address (SONSA), Pandora’s Box, did call on Swallows to do a ‘Barcelona’ on their Tanzanian opponents and they obliged – so beautifully – with three brilliant goals that read like beauty contest results.

If Sabelo ‘Sikhali’ Ndzinisa’s toe-poked goal in-between a forest of legs five minutes before half-time having turned and tossed like an Amazon reptile demonstrated the Goal King’s sheer guile, panache, poise and class, then Wonder ‘Samba Jive’ Nhleko’s 66th minute clincher was so good it could have been eaten for supper.

Azam’s goalkeeper, Ashi Manula could not be blamed for seeing the ball long after it had hit the top right corner of the net because goalkeepers to save such kind of shots are yet to be born.  The ‘dessert’ – third goal – served by lanky striker Sandile Hlatshwako with a cool-as-a-cucumber finish was a typical goal-poacher’s goal that made the victory as sweet as a nectarine.

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