SIHLANGU NEED #KFCPROPOSAL MENTALITY

My dearest readers ... It is not an overstatement to say the average liSwati’s concern about the senior men’s national team, Sihlangu Semnikati is the equivalent of the reproductive process of the dung beetle.

It is neither here nor there. In fact in recent times, the disillusionment with the national side has spilled over into hatred and derision.
While some sections of the rent-a-crowd Sihlangu supporters, who one time carried placards calling for Papic to go (Papic akahambe ekhaya), have now changed tune, offering their undivided support, the majority still feel the amiable Serbian coach is not different from his long-list of predecessors. We all know Sihlangu has had a cemetery of men; hired and fired by Eswatini Football Association (EFA) silk-suited souls at Sigwaca House.

They reckon Sihlangu is still softer-than-a-baby’s-bottom. You see people care about a winning team. They get behind it. While my beloved Orlando Pirates coach Rhulani Mokwena, who views his floundering team as worthy of painting Mona Lisas aplenty if not running out of time when losing matches, Papic believes Sihlangu ‘has quality and we have shown Africa that we are not afraid of anyone’.

Papic must be wondering, like many of us who are level-headed and genuinely love our national team, why it is that Sihlangu not only gets to play well away from home but even scores more than one goal yet they just cannot score at home to save their lives?

Subscribers to the denizen of the world of spooks point towards our modest venue being cursed and even more bewildering, members of the ‘Special Projects’ being at ‘war’ and Sihlangu being the sacrificial lamb.

snigger

Forgive me you but I snigger at ‘archaic superstitious beliefs’ even though in my school days at St Christopher’s High School I used to ‘munch on wafers and sip on Sedwick’s Old Brown Sherry’ every Sunday in the belief that I was eating the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ.

That’s why I take what they say with a lorry load of salt but I can’t argue otherwise given the prevailing scenario where the national team has not won an international fixture at Mavuso Sports Centre. We are talking of SEVEN consecutive games here!

This is long before we offered the poisoned chalice that is the Sihlangu coaching job to the amiable Serbian in the process making him the lowest paid national team coach in the region.

We are facing Guinea Bissau tomorrow in the opening fixtures of the 2021 AFCON qualifiers. We are facing a Guinea Bissau team made up of 20 internationals in their 22-member team yet we have not ONE international in our squad. Papic reckons our so-called internationals are chicken dust, not worthy of the tag, if their performances at struggling Mbombela United, are anything to consider.

The other international Banele ‘Pupu’ Sikhondze is recovering from a three-month injury and is yet to kick a ball in anger at ABSA premiership side Polokwane City where he is yet to make any meaningful contribution since his well publicised move from Mbabane Swallows.

This, by any imagination, is a mountain to climb for Sihlangu considering that by the time they landed yesterday at the West African island nation, they had been travelling for almost three days.

So, all things considered, Sihlangu need to check in at the nearest branch at KFC (I am sure there is one in Bissau, the capital city) for a date with the elusive win.

They need the kind of bravery and mentality exhibited by one David Hector Mkansi, who made a marriage proposal to Nonhlanhla while dining at a KFC outlet in South Africa. This audacious act, which has gone viral, has scored the couple millions of Rands in the form of cash, jewellery, home loan offer, holidays, clothing vouchers and entertainment. 

daring

Sihlangu needs that kind of daring exploits in the republic of Guinea Bissau which gained independence on September 24, 1973.
Papic’s boys’ away record is encouraging even though vintage is not yet in their vocabulary. Their football is pleasing to the eye but in football, sadly, there are no extra points awarded for artistry and aesthetics.

Otherwise my beloved Orlando Pirates would be at the summit of the log rather than Set Pieces FC from Naturena. Instead the glorious Soweto Buccaneers, as my friend, Sunday Times Sports Editor Bareng-Batho-Kortjaas would put it, iphefumula ngenxeba like that guy in the insurance advert on television.

We, Sihlangu supporters, sesiphefumele ngenxeba, for far too long. It is time to end the cycle of misery – starting tomorrow in Bissau.
Sihlangu can learn from South Africa’s most loved couple – the #KFCProposal intrepid and enterprising marriage proposal. It’s time we get married to winning!

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