SFAX-CINATING ‘BIRDS’ HAVE COME OF AGE!

l Gallant Mbabane Swallows have the strength, determination and will to make headway in Africa and raise the country’s flag sky high

My dearest readers... Hindsight, so the saying goes, is a wonderful thing. This has always struck me as utterly ridiculous, because we can all be geniuses after the event. Foresight, in my humble opinion, is a much more valuable thing and it’s for the latter’s quality that I assume our country’s continental envoys Mbabane Swallows are not getting the support or the plaudits they so richly deserve having become the first team in Swaziland, under the new format, to reach the group stage of any continental tournament.

Yes, in their opening match in the group stage they lost narrowly 0-1 to top Tunisian side CS Sfaxien, had two genuine penalty appeals ignored by a visually impaired Senegalese match official Issa SY and his two equally inept countrymen, Djibil Camara and Aamadou Ngom, missed a glorious opportunity and conceded a soft goal but boy, they are growing in stature in Africa!

At this point allow me to doff my poor man’s cap in salute of the ‘Beautiful Birds’ for standing their ground, outplaying the three-time Confederation Cup Champions and Champions League runners-up at their own backyard, the beautiful Taieb Mhiri stadium. Bravo Mkhonto Ka-Shaka for not losing with cricket scores in Tunisia on a weekend when DR Congo’s AS Vita lost 3-1 and Mozambique’s Ferroviaro were hammered 5-0 by Esperance. Yes, losing is losing.

Sport always makes that point succinctly and there is no space for comments on the log as one Jose Mourinho once said but Swallows lost with dignity, if ever there was such a thing. This is not just a journalistic imperative of accentuating the positives but Swallows were as sweet as honey on Saturday with a blistering second half performance, which in all honesty deserved more than the standing ovation afforded by the disgruntled CS Sfaxien passionate supporters. Even the heavens know a draw would have been a fair result of the CAF Confederation Cup Group B match. It is often said that people are showered with praises only when they are no more and the best comments are usually reserved for their obituaries. Yes, more than most sports, soccer has a way of exalting its past.

Time and pre-HD pictures have a way of making history seem better than it was. For example, is Lionel Messi the greatest player of all time?

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