The Sunday News
Cosmas Zulu
ZIFA Southern Region side Talen Vision won the John Landa Nkomo Trophy with McCarthy Sibanda getting the priceless goal.
It was his fourth goal in this tournament. The T K Nkomo Investments Company-rolled project is showing some good progress. If you plant a bamboo tree it takes five years for the seed to germinate, but it takes six weeks for the tree to grow to 60 meters tall.
I will say this to the organisers of this Memorial Trophy, When you held the tournament without a public address system, no banners displaying a picture of this great man and none of his family representative present, no announcement of the sponsor or just to have sponsor’s T Shirts with the late Vice-President’s picture on them to give teams or spectators, then there is something wrong with the organisers.
The late Vice-President was a man who preached peace, and bringing in school children to give poems at half time, just to remind spectators what this great man’s legacy and vision was, would have been great. And this is a tournament which they could have easily staged at Hwange Stadium to give the Hwange community a Cup Final and to celebrate their title win. If I remember well there has been no big competition held in this small town in years, look at Chibuku sponsors, they took the final to Chiredzi.
Soccer Stars selection
This is something I would like the Castle Lager sponsors to look into. The merit used to choose the stars; I think it does not reflect the proper documented criteria, I propose that all the towns where Premier League games are played have three people, a supporter, a coach and a journalist with score cards which show the criterias of defence, midfield, attack and give marks accordingly.
These cards are surrendered to the match commissioner who sends them to PSL after the game, where every month end they compile the cards and come up with the monthly awards and come end of the year it’s easy to come up with national soccer stars. It will also cut costs on getting the coaches, officials, team captains and journalists who are all booked in hotels. The money can be used for prizes. The owners of the game who are the supporters must have a say in the selection.
Score boards
We have score boards at Luveve, White City, Barbourfields stadiums, but the Barbourfields score board is hardly used and I have never seen the Luveve and White City scoreboards as work either. Modern technology if not utilised easily breaks down.
I would appreciate it if the council, which owns these stadia could respond to this.
In a 90 minute game
– In a 90 minute game of soccer the ball is only in play for approximately 60 minutes, for the remainder of the time the ball is out of play.
– Out of the 60 minutes in which the ball is in play each team has a chance to be in possession of the ball for 30 minute.s
– During the time in which the ball is in play the ball will frequently be in flight and outside the playing distance of any of the 22 players.
– An individual player in a team on average cannot have possession of the ball for more than two minutes.
Question — what is the player doing for the other 58 minutes that the ball is in play?
Answer — Making judgements, decisions, selections.
Let’s keep reading until next week. Feedback – [email protected]/ 0773842671
