FROM NOWHERE TO SOMEWHERE!

My dearest readers ...

Speaking is bread and butter rather than Champagne and caviar. Each person is as capable as the next. But when you listen to new Sihlangu Semnikati Serbian coach Kostadin ‘Bill Clinton’ Papic speak about football issues, the wind seems to stop blowing, you give him undivided attention because he has a way with words; he can tell you to go to hell in such a way that you would look forward to the trip. Arguing with him would be like wrestling with a greased pig at a Village Fair. His dictum shines like ancient wisdom on the coaching and tactical fads. “From this game, there is no doubt, we are moving from nowhere to somewhere,” said the former coach of that indestructible, indefatigable, glorious and lovable South African soccer institution called Orlando Pirates Football Club, founded in Orlando East in 1937. This was moments after the nation’s pride – make that former – Sihlangu had fired blanks in a goalless draw with the ‘Flames’ of Malawi in a preliminary round of CAF’s poor man’s Africa Cup of Nations, loosely referred to as CHAN, at Mavuso Sports Centre on Saturday. 

Papic was not just loosely making a point of reference like some coaches who seek to impose a hint of logic and biting feel for how the game should be played and the progress that has been made but the proof of the pudding was in the eating, so to speak. The 500 or so souls who took time to rally support behind Sihlangu – including the 100 rent-a-crowd sponsored by On Time Investment in an effort to establish a Eswatini Football Association Supporters Club – can all attest that there were a lot of positives from the national team performance. Yes, the squad still failed to win and have a mountain to climb away in Blantyre in the second leg in two weeks’ time but from the plethora of chances created – and missed – the enterprising counter-attacking football, the pressing, the building up from the back and keeping shape, there is hope that finally we can play to our true potential.

On Saturday, there was more zest and energy in Sihlangu’s play than I have seen since Harries ‘Madze’ Bulunga, now Minister of Sports, Culture and Youth Affairs, took the team to within touching distance of AFCON 2017 qualification. I will not bore you about the details of how football politics saw him being relieved of his duties. Karma has already delivered its coup de grace. For once, we saw our team building up moves from the back even though our defenders are not technically accomplished to the mould of the best central defender in the world right now, Liverpool’s 75 million Pounds signing Virgil van Djik. But there is now method in the Sihlangu’s playing madness, so to speak. This is certainly not this grandson of Mlonyeni accentuating the positives or a stream of unbridled optimism based on the most slender of foundations – even the silk-suited souls who sit in the EFA Executive Committee I spoke to after the game were in unison that there was hope. Of course these are early days. The onus is still on Papic to change the dynamic of the team, create a dawning sense that at some point in future the national team will display the unity and purpose that has been elusive for far too long. Papic, in just two official games in charge, has banished the long, kick-and-hope football and tactical malnourishment that manifested itself during the (mis) guidance of one Anthony Mdluli.

Post your comment

Your name:

Your e-mail address:

Add your comments:

Please enter the code you see in the image:

Image:

Code: