THE POISONED CHALICE

My dearest readers... By the time you read this State-of-the-Nation-Sports-Address (SONSA) the national team, Sihlangu Semnikati, would have exchanged blows with the ‘Red Devils’ of Congo Brazzaville  in an AFCON 2022 qualifier at Mavuso Sports Centre. You already know the result and the scoreline. You couldn’t be bothered, right?

Who cares about the continent’s whipping boys, anyway? Sihlangu has been on a slippery slope to nothingness for far too long. Long before the COVID-19 pandemic turned our world upside down – literally and figuratively speaking – Sihlangu has been engaged in social distancing with victory. The last victory was in 2018 in a celebratory friendly match against Namibia at the self-same Mavuso Sports Centre. The collective number of defeats is just too many to mention. In fact, counting them all will leave me with no space for the column. In this nature of business, every centimetre counts. Whatever the results from yesterday’s match was, one thing is becoming increasingly blindingly obvious – the coaching job at Sihlangu is proving to be a poisoned chalice.

The Adam ‘Bomber’ Mthethwa-led Executive Committee has hired and fired a plethora of coaches, some with names as weird as their owners. Valere Billen, Raoul Savoy, Pieter De Jongh, Ayman Elyamany, Ephraim ‘Shakes’ Mashaba, Anthony Mdluli, Kostadin Papic have all gone through the Sihlangu coaching vicious cycle.  

Defeat

The latest ‘victim’ is our very own Dominic Kunene. One game, one defeat prior to yesterday’s return match against the ‘Red Devils’ of Congo. Coaching Sihlangu is not just becoming a chore but you are like that broke guy trying to impress a slay queen.

Kunene was celebrated as a saviour when he was appointed but only a lunatic would have expected him to be the panacea to all our Sihlangu ills. The COVID-19 pandemic did not help matters for Kunene as the football season was suspended leading to the cancellation of not just domestic games but the COSAFA Cup and the qualifiers themselves being postponed. He has had to assemble a team of players who have not kicked a ball in anger since March and within two weeks, play his first match away in Congo Brazzaville. The result? A 2-0 defeat after holding their own for a good 70 minutes of the match last Thursday. Some among us who never watched the game termed the results ‘good’ but what did former coach Gordon Igesund say about football results? There are no comments next to the results column!

Sihlangu is a team of ZEROS. Zero points, zero wins, zero draw. Only one goal in three AFCON Qualifiers in a Group where favourites, Senegal have already qualified by virtue of beating Guinea-Bissau 1-0 at the Estadio 24 de Setembro in Bissau on Sunday courtesy of Liverpool’s Sadio Mane’s lone strike. 

Before yesterday’s game Sihlangu had shipped in nine goals in three games which is an average of three goals per game. Once again, our dreams of qualifying for AFCON 2022 finals are only just that – a dream.

Formality

The home match against the ‘African Wild Dog’ of Guinea-Bissau on 22 March, 2021 and the away match to the Senegal’s ‘Lions of Teranga’ on 30 March 2021 will just be a formality.

Things are tenuous down at the EFA technical centre and it looks like whosever coined the phrase ‘it never rains but pours’ had Sihlangu in mind.  Kunene, like all others before him, has his hands full. The last coach to take the poisoned chalice that is the Sihlangu coaching job, Kostadin Papic’s hair was becoming a shade of grey with every passing second and it even threatened to get to the level of that orange man at the White House, who was refusing to accept the election result which proved Biden is no average Joe, sooner than soon.

Sihlangu is in a deep, dark black hole. What are the custodians of the national team, the Eswatini Football Association (EFA) doing about it? Nothing, Zilch, fokol, nada. Oh, I forget, they just clinched an Umbro kit sponsorship deal. That’s commendable. But what about the team’s performance? How are they helping Kunene get the results we have been yearning for?

That’s the million dollar question. What’s the plan about the national team? What’s the EFA Technical Director Boy ‘Bizzah’ Mkhonta doing about it?

Is there a five-year plan or programme? If there is, how are they bringing it to the confidence of the nation or is it there as part of the ornament in the many files at Sigwaca House?

Activities

The EFA owes this nation an explanation about the abject performance of the national team. Doesn’t it bother the EFA that there is waning love affair with emaSwati who are not shy to declare that they would rather engage in other activities than waste precious time watching Sihlangu? Long before the COVID-19 pandemic, Sihlangu was only able to attract a man and his dog to its home games.

People are not fools. They can only get behind a winning team. These days a trip to the dentist to extract a tooth (you can smile here Dr Comfort Shongwe) or watching paint dry, are more entertaining engagements than watching Sihlangu. 

I seriously don’t envy Dominic Kunene. He may earn his E30 000 salary or whatsoever, but chances of him succeeding as a coach in the cauldron of the senior national team are as remote as Yours Truly being the next Mr Eswatini!

As it is, he is like that broke guy trying to impress a slay queen.

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