‘BIRDS’ RE-VISITING CRIME SCENE!

My dearest readers.........By the time you read this, I would have landed at the Kenneth Kaunda International Airport in Lusaka, courtesy of Swazi MTN, to run my rule over the CAF Champions League first round clash between the ‘Invincibles’ of Swazi football, Mbabane Swallows against ‘The Bankers’ of Zambia, a team formed in 1978 as a social team of the management trainees of Zambia National Commercial Bank.

In more ways than one, for Swallows, this clash against the Zambians does feel like re-visiting a crime scene or being forced to confront a guilty secret. Three times, Swallows has been drawn against Zambian opposition teams in the preliminary round of the CAF Champions League, they have ended with the wooden part of the spoon. Let me jog your memory. It was on February 5, 2013 when the Swallows of Mbabane travelled to this hotter-than-hell Lusaka to face tomorrow’s opponents, Zanaco and bravely lost 3-2. Everyone who is anyone in local football circles heaped praises on the ‘Birds’ for standing their own away from home but only to go flatter than a can of Coke that has been left open for an hour, after timidly playing to a goalless draw at home in the second leg tie.

Zambia 1 Swaziland 0.

Then again in February 2014, Swallows drew another Zambian opposition in Nkana FC. The first leg tie was played at Somhlolo National Stadium, where the red and white glamour side sent the whole country into endless bouts of ecstasy, when Nyanga ‘Crooks’ Hlophe’s charges cruised to a 2-0 win. But the Red Devils of Kitwe founded in 1935, had an ace up their sleeve in the second leg where some daft Mauritian referees were so shockingly biased they would make referee, Thulani Sibandze look like six-times FIFA’s Best referee, Pierluigi Collina. Swallows painfully lost 5-2 to bow out 5-4 on aggregate in controversial circumstances. A hopping mad Swallows boss, Victor ‘Maradona’ Gamedze (may his soul repose peacefully), was so incensed by the biasness displayed by the Mauritius match officials he spewed some unprintable expletives on the direction of even local sports journalists, on why they were even interviewing the coaches after ‘this daylight robbery’.
Zambia 2 Swaziland 0.

Another year (2015), another Zambian opposition for Swallows in Zesco United. ‘Team Ya Ziko’, as the Ndola based outfit is affectionately called, founded on January 1, 1974, won the first leg tie 1-0 which gave many local soccer fans hope that Swallows would turn the tables in the second leg at home. Revenge was the buzzword upon return from Ndola. But even the controversial Felix Badenhorst goal, which clearly needed a goal-line technology approval on whether it crossed the line or not, could not stop the ‘Zega Mambo’ as the Bruno Mukeya owned outfit is called on these shores, from advancing to the first round on a 2-1 aggregate score.
Zambia 3 Swaziland 0.

Dear reader, statistics, as Aaron Levenstein once said, are like bikinis - what they reveal is suggestive but what they conceal is vital. Swallows statistics against Zambian opposition do not make for riveting reading. Worse still, the ‘Birds’ record in the CAF Champions league too, is scary. Remember in 2016, they beat Rwanda’s APR 1-0 at home, only to lose 4-2 away. But after the wonderful exploits in the less glamorous CAF Confederation’s Cup – the poor man’s Champions league in some context – last year in which Thabo ‘Koki’ Vilakati’s brave battalions became the first Swazi team to reach the group stages under the new format, there has been some considerable improvement.

For the first time, Swallows has gone beyond the preliminary round of the CAF Champions League, after seeing off Lesotho’s Bantu FC even though they shamefully lost the second leg tie 3-1 at home, having won 4-2 away in Maseru to advance on an away goal rule after the 5-5 aggregate score.
The defeat to the Basotho clearly left a bitter taste in the mouth. Coach, ‘Koki’ Vilakati, the multiple award-winning mentor, came under a lot of fire even from one of his players, Felix Badenhorst, whom he shockingly substituted even though he was not only the lone goal-scorer but clearly the best Swallows player on the pitch. Many soccer commentators felt it was becoming evident the dearly departed club boss, Victor Gamedze played a very critical role even on technical matters in the team, and the centre could no longer hold at the ‘Birds’ nest. The Swallows of Mbabane are as sickle as a parrot.
It is this pensive mood they will need to clear when they take on the top Zambian side tomorrow at the Nkoloma Stadium. The ‘Bankers’ of Zambia go to tomorrow’s 3pm kickoff clash buoyed by their massive 6-1 aggregate win over the Armed Forces of Gambia in the preliminary round. But Swallows are not the softer-than-a-baby’s-bottom Gambian side.
Yes, they are not as swashbuckling as they were last season but to go 43 league games unbeaten, stretching back to May 15, 2016 and 28 domestic games unbeaten, is no mean feat. It takes blood, sweat and tears. It takes more than just guts. 
This is what has made the Swallows of Mbabane such a great side easily recognisable even in African football jungle, where most often than not, the hunter becomes the hunted. But there is no doubt a mammoth task awaits Koki Vilakati and his brave battalions here tomorrow. But this Swallows side has time and again confounded its critics, achieved the almost impossible and done this small country of ours proud on many an occasion. Tomorrow, Swallows carry the hopes of one million people and the guardian angel lying peacefully in the fertile ground of KaLanga is here with all of us in spirit. Go for it Mkhonto Ka-Shaka!
The African football landscape is your oyster. Shaka Akashayeki! 

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