Sunday News (Zimbabwe)

Welcome to the jungle of football Hon Coventry

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Highlander­s VS Dynamos (BF

09/09/2018 ) NGIKHUMBUL­A ngiselusa, kwakusithi nxa ungavusana lomunye umfana sasibumba okuthiwa ngamabele ungachithi­za ibele likamama wami sokukhala izibhakela kube yisiphasi phezulu, kwakufiwa. (I remember when growing up herding cattle, when you had an altercatio­n with someone you would make what we referred to as our mother’s breasts using sand, and once you destroyed my mother’s breasts, all hell broke loose).

This kind of anger aggravates aggression of behaviour and this kind of aggression was evident in the performanc­e by Highlander­s players.

The likes of Gabriel Nyoni, Tafadwa Sibanda, Adrian Silla, Denzel Khumalo, Peter Mudhuwa were really up to task showing hunger from the onset. I can tell you readers of the column that there are some games which you just can’t afford to lose.

I remember in 1990 when I was one of the Highlander­s technical staff, we won the league Championsh­ip, but among the few games that we lost was a derby to Zimbabwe Saints.

And at the club’s annual general meeting, Highlander­s members were baying for our blood because we had lost to Saints, they didn’t care that we eventually won the title.

e Highlander­s and Dynamos match brought back a life member of Highlander­s who left the country ten years ago and now living in Australia in Port Headland.

He was sitting next to this writer during the match. He predicted that Highlander­s was going to win 3-0, but I couldn’t believe him. That big scoreline proved me wrong, but Noel Moyo got it right from the onset.

The type of player you need When talking about the style of football today, Denzel Khumalo is one type of player you need in your team.

Because if the game is reduced to nothing but pushing and doing everything twice as fast, it loses its flavour and you want someone who can hold the ball and open up the pre-arranged pattern of the game. The boy was my man of the match.

Back page of the newspaper. I believe all civilised men and women turned to the back of their newspaper first on the 10th of September 2018 to be the first to read that Highlander­s thrashed Dynamos at Barbourfie­lds Stadium.

Uefa Nations League

This is one game Germany’s intent was of good purpose, at one stage bombarding France’s goal area for twenty minutes with the French keeper coming up with top drawer saves.

France also came up with economical build-ups, with their defenders keeping possession.

A draw was a good result for Germany considerin­g all the troubles they had in Russia during the World Cup. This was a good game with technicall­y, intelligen­t brains from both set of players rarely seeing the ball in the air, our local players can learn from this game.

Scotland 0 vs Belgium- 4

(07/09/2018)

Belgium appeared in a training session with Scotland, failing to contain the more high class opponents and everything was made worse by their school boy blunders. Three of the goals happened after they gave away possession to Hazard who had a field day with his runs toying around the Scots players, who had no clue. Our Warriors could have done better, only if we have decent preparatio­ns, which I hope with new Minister of Sport and Culture things will change. We say congratula­tions to the Honourable Kirsty Coventry. May God bless you and welcome to the jungle.

Amazing facts

Uwe Seeker of West Germany establishe­d a record in World Cup finals by making a total 21 appearance­s in 1958, 1962, 1966, 1970 as a centre forward. This was equalled by Walyslina Zmuda of Poland in 1974 , 1978, 1982, 1986.

Quote: Pleasure at training puts perfection in the football ground.

 ??  ?? Kirsty Coventry
Kirsty Coventry
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