‘BULL’, ‘WESLIANS’ LETTING OUR FOOTBALL DOWN

My dearest readers ... Empires do not fall – they crumble, brick by brick. If the dreadful performances by the country’s two oldest and big sides, Mbabane Highlanders and Manzini Wanderers in the sleep-inducing league clash on Sunday is anything to go by, then our football is in serious danger than we could all imagine.

It is not surprising really that the dreadful encounter ended in a goalless stalemate – neither team deserved to win – and besides the brilliant penalty save by Wanderers goalkeeper Banele Dlamini, it would have been unnoticeable if both teams played sans goalkeepers. I struggled to stay awake watching this eye-sore especially after spending time in a classy 25th birthday celebration party of the woman who makes my heart sing like a canary on Saturday night.

I wondered as I watched this sorry excuse for a Premier League football match that if Valdano, a former sporting director at Real Madrid, once described a Chelsea versus Liverpool UEFA Champions league clash, as like ‘human waste hanging from a stick,’  what would he have made of the two giants’ most boring clash in living memory? Perhaps, he would have described it as a rhino turd hanging from a tree!
Both teams midfielders, for prolonged periods of the game, looked like uncomfortable guests at a party where the host had forgotten to make any introductions.

Such is the dearth of talent in both teams that, at times I feel we, as a media, have also worsened the situation by elevating mediocrity to lofty heights by creating plastic celebrities out of pedestrian performers who would struggle to pass salt across the dinner table. We have built hundreds of artistic gods with feet of clay!

Since when has Mohammed Sabela deserved a sharp shooter title? With all due respect, the Ghanaian supposedly deadly striker doesn’t deserve to carry the team’s soccer kit!

 The poor off-the-ball runs and lack of basic passing technique by Wanderers strikers Sifiso Matse and Tawana Chikore makes one wonder if they even comprehend what it means wearing the proud maroon and white kit and playing for arguably the country’s most supported club. The Wanderers of  Thobile ‘Schemer’ Thwala, Dikiza ‘Ding Dong’ Ndzabandzaba, Matthews ‘Chaka Chaka’ Mandlazi, Sipho ‘Shisa Gesi’ Mdluli, Lucky ‘Majaivana’ Vilakazi, Jerry ‘Mbazo’ Gamedze, John ‘Shisa Junior’ Mdluli, Nduku ‘Umfundisi’ Mabuza, Doctor ‘16V’ Nxumalo, Zwelakhe ‘Mrico’ Nxumalo, Patrick ‘Nkola’ Mkhwanazi, Maxwell ‘King Dunga’ Zikalala, Bheki ‘Control’ Thwala, Mxolisi ‘Stopper’ Mtsetfwa, to mention but a few. 

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