Let’s back Chunga’s Kidznet dream
T HE Young Warriors ended their nightmarish 2017 Cosafa Under-17 Cup adventure in Mauritius without a single point to their credit after losing all their three group matches. Coach Moses Chunga and his team made up of schoolboys received a reality check as they slumped to defeats at the hands of Mauritius, Malawi and Botswana, scoring just one goal in 270 minutes of action.
After the Warriors’ breathtaking success story at the 2017 Cosafa Senior Challenge Cup, expectations among the majority of Zimbabwean football fans were that the Young Warriors would also roar in Mauritius and win the tournament.
This year marked the 10th anniversary of that success story scripted by coach Rodwell Dhlakama and his charges at the same tournament where we fielded a team that featured players like Knowledge Musona, now the Warriors captain.
However, the Class of 2017 were no match for their opponents in Mauritius and slumped to a 0-5 thrashing at the hands of Malawi, in their second game, lost 1-2 to Botswana who came from behind to win the match and fell 0-1 to hosts Mauritius.
The Mauritians will now play for the gold medal against Zambia after they shocked South Africa 2-0 in their semi-final yesterday.
Chunga said, before his troops played Malawi, he feared for the worst because he claimed the opponents were older than his charges and did not, on face value, appear to be under the 17-year threshold.
His remarks coincided with reports from Zambia claiming that some of the players sent to the championships were older than 17 years and should not have been part of the tournament.
The Zambians were disqualified from last year’s Cosafa Under-17 Cup after the organisers established that they had fielded over-aged players.
A team photo of the Zambian side that is currently in Mauritius has gone viral across Southern Africa amid calls for the Cosafa leadership to take a stance on some players which many feel are over 17.
While we always believe that every national team that represents us, in whatever battle, should strive to win, we tend to agree with the approach that Chunga took to look for very young players, including some who are under 15, for this mission in Mauritius.
The Cosafa Under-17 Championships is a developmental tournament and while winning it brings bragging rights, the real motive should always be to introduce our youngsters to the challenges of playing football at such a level.
And Chunga’s decision to go for genuine young players might not have reaped immediate benefits for us in Mauritius but, in the long run, it could be more beneficial for our football than those who chose to cheat their way to glory this year.
As long as we keep these young players together and ensure they continue getting expert coaching, we could be building a strong platform for a competitive future Warriors side with these players graduating, in the next four or so years, into our senior team.
We shouldn’t join the bandwagon of those who want to cheat their way to success because such a formula only brings shortterm success.
The world has always wondered why African nations, notably Nigeria and Ghana, do very well at the Fifa World Under-17 and Fifa World Under-20 Championships, which representatives of this continent have won on a number of occasions, but never replicate that form when it comes to the Fifa World Cup for senior players.
Critics have always argued that the reason why African nations do well at these youth tournaments is because most of them tend to field players who are older than their opponents.
And, when the playing field is levelled, at the senior Fifa World Cup, everything changes and that is why we have never seen an African side qualifying for the semi-finals of this tournament while our junior sides have been regular winners in the agegroup tournaments.
Where do the players who shine so brightly at the age-group tournaments go?
The answer is that, since they are already old by the time they are fielded in the age-group tournaments, they don’t develop as expected while those countries from Europe and South America, who field young players, reap the huge dividends that come with exposing the right age-groups in the right tournaments.
Chunga has a vision, we saw it when he started his Kidznet project with Dynamos at the turn of the millennium, and we should trust him to continue shepherding our Young Warriors, irrespective of the results in Mauritius because, in the long run, our football will be the winner.
Those who are criticising Chunga forget that, for about four years now, we have not been taking part in these tournaments and the coach had to start from scratch and he made the right decision to go with the youths who represent the future for this game.