The Sunday News
Danisa Masuku
FORMER national team and Zisco Steel FC forward Jonathan Boriwondo reckons Premiership teams lack sharpshooters, he urges clubs to come out of their comfort zone and scout for forwards in the lower rungs of the league.
“There is abundant talent in Division One and Division Two. More so, there are players who are promising to be powerful strikers who could match the yesteryear greats of prolific strikers like Maronga Nyangela or Shackman Tauro who earned the nickname Mr Goals because of his extra-ordinary scoring skills,” he tells Sunday Life Sport.
Indeed the PSL is devoid of the forwards who could crack goals as most clubs rely on wingers and attacking midfielders to score. Boriwondo is an ardent follower of the domestic league and he bemoans the poor conversion rate of strikers.
“I have watched many teams in action and left the stadium a disappointed man, the strikers will have a number of clear-cut chances of scoring but you will see a striker scoring once or twice or even missing all the chances. That proves that the PSL lacks sharp shooters,” he says.
He blames most of the coaches for recycling old players who are already spent forces and cannot last the 90-minute playing duration.
He says coaches are mainly worried about improving their coaching profile as they target clinching the league title with old guards who cannot provide any meaningful contribution to the national team.
“These coaches are self centred and they want to win the league title with old players who fail to provide that spark in the league. Sadly such players have failed to prove their inclusion in the national team and their performance has been a big yawn” he says.
He says by ignoring the budding talent the PSL clubs would be shooting themselves in the foot.
“There is future in the upcoming players who are rough diamonds who need to be turned into gold and take this country to great heights in the football arena. I am of the opinion that more than half of the players should be composed of juniors because they still have more years in the game and they give their all in the game,” he says.
Boriwondo says PSL clubs should have a vibrant junior policy that should be strictly followed so as to have much fresh blood in the PSL.
He pointed out that during his playing days most of the teams had a strong junior policy that was religiously followed and youth centres which are dotted around locations used to churn out fresh talent that went on to make waves in the Super League. However, it is common place that Youth Centres are slowly becoming irrelevant although in certain instances are used by arts practitioners when conducting their practice sessions. In short, youth centres have lost that lustre, let alone being a conveyor belt of promising talent.
Turning to his playing days, he had a successful stint with the Under-20 national team and went on to become a starlet for the side.
Naturally when a player shines in a game and scores a winning goal or level matters, that match will certainly be one of his best and this is the case with Boriwondo who played a pivotal role when the Under-20 national team played host to Malawi Under- 20 national team at Barbourfields Stadium in Bulawayo.
“That game when we hosted Malawi at BF goes down as my best game. Malawi was leading 1-0 when I was introduced in the second half and made a difference by scoring an all-important goal which helped us in drawing 1-1 with the side. We managed to progress to the quarter-finals of the Cosafa tournament,” he recalls.
His memorable highlight in Zisco Steel colours was when he scored two important goals against a trail blazing Dynamos side.
“We played host to a strong Dynamos side at our home ground Torwood Stadium. I provided an assist and scored a winning goal in the dying minutes of the game. We beat them 2-1,”he reminisces.
However, his most felt heartache was when they were hammered 6-0 by Bulawayo Eagles at White City Stadium.
“Bulawayo Eagles was a strong side and was difficult to beat, as a result we got a baptism of fire as they beat us 6-0. They outclassed us in all departments” he remembers.
At the time the side was coached by former Zisco Steel FC winger Benard Zikhali who is now based in the United Kingdom.
He reveals that he has much respect for his former coaches Zikhali and Paul Moyo.
“The two (Zikhali and Moyo) played an influential role in shaping my footballing career. Both were tacticians who had patience with us and played a fatherly role to all of us (players),” he shares.
His stint with the national team was nothing to write home about. In most of his stints with the warriors he was benched or would feature in the match coming from the bench.
He reveals that when a player got injured the club hierarchy would turn a blind eye to such a player.
“During our playing days when a player got injured the coaches and the club management would not care to cater for the medical expenses. They will forget about the player and only gained interest when he had recovered,” he reveals.
Comparably he says yester year teams used wrong training methods unlike the PSL clubs.
“During our playing days we used wrong training methods such as frog jump, ten-marker and we would run for 20 to 30 kilometres. We did not know that was detrimental to our careers, as a result most of the players suffered career threatening injuries,”he says.
Now the Premier Soccer League has revamped its training methods and banned some of the training methods such as frog jump, and ten-marker. He hung his soccer boots in 1992.
Fact file
Jonathan Boriwondo was born in 1963 in Mhangura. He is married to Mitchell. The couple was blessed with four children namely David who turns out for PSL debutants Nichrut FC, Perpetual, Patricia and Tafadzwa.
The couple worships at Anglican church. He is currently based at Hwange Colliery where he is a fitter and turner. He was born in a family of 10 children — six boys and four girls.
He says all the boys played professional soccer — Andrew turned out for Mhangura, Sebastian and James played for Mhangura and Zisco Steel while Jack and him turned out for Zisco Steel. He owns a house in Mbizo suburb, Kwekwe.
