The last time we checked, there are thousands of soccer players who have the Zimbabwean passport and are eligible to represent this beautiful country.
Actually, if all soccer players converge at once, Sakubva Stadium in Mutare might be too small to house them.
What then determines a player being called to represent Zimbabwe at senior level and don the iconic gold and green Warriors strip, is ability and distinct qualities which other players don’t posses.
Regrettably, that is no longer the case.
The Zdravko Logarusic-led technical team saw it fitting that 19-year old Jonah Fabisch- a player plying his trade in Germany, for a team called Humburger SV II, be included in the Warriors squad.
For whose who are not aware, Humburger SV II is in the 4th tier of Germany football.
Like sports-caster Mike Madoda rightly-asked recently, who between Logarusic, or his assistants Lloyd Chitembwe and Tonderai Ndiraya, or maybe Technical Director Wilson Mutekede, actually watched Fabisch in person or in videos, to conclude that he is good enough to be drafted into the Warriors fold?
And to think that club, a semi-semi-professional club in Germany, was actually giving us conditions for Fabisch to travel to South Africa for the upcoming Cosafa Cup, tells a sad story of what our once-reputable national team has been reduced to.
I can bet my last cent that if critically-quizzed about Jonah, the only thing the Warriors technical team will tell you is that he is Reinhard Fabisch’s son.
Do we actually know that these are good players or we just gamble and waste money for air tickets and hope that they turn out to be good?
Aren’t the examples too many for us not to learn?
We struggled for years, for Adam Chicksen to finally honour a Warriors call up, only for him to show up last November and prove to us that not all players plying their trade abroad are not good players.
For a reason best known to him, Logarusic saw it fitting for Croatian Second division side NK Solin’s Romario Matova, to be named in the Warriors squad for the decisive AFCON qualifiers against Botswana and Zambia.
To prove that was a weird decision by the Croat, Matova put up a lacklustre display against Zambia in the dead rubber at the National Sports Stadium.
Similarly, to prove that they were both grave mistakes, Matova and Chicksen have been snubbed ever since.
Why do we continuously select players for the national team, based on reputation or countries where they are based, rather than on merit?
Are we that players-starved, to the point that we deem the 4th division in Germany and second division in Croatia as competitive leagues good enough to produce national team players?
CAPS United’s Ishmael Wadi has developed a ‘I score when I want not when I can’ reputation in the Chibuku Super Cup but was snubbed in preference of Evans Rusike- a striker who has been offloaded by SuperSport United.
In fact, Rusike has not scored a goal in Warriors colours for nearly four years but he is roped in the squad for a tournament meant to develop players and give a chance to the fringe ones.
For a national team, the Warriors selection criteria is sometimes a joke.
