11 October 2008
UNDER normal circumstances, Brazilian coach Valinhos should have handed in his resignation soon after Zimbabwe's 2-4 defeat to Namibia, which rounded off the two teams' 2010 Group 2 qualifying campaign in Windhoek yesterday.
If ever there had been any doubt the Brazilian mentor is out of his depth at this level of the game, yesterday's humiliation against such modest opposition was enough evidence Valinhos has been promoted to the height of his incompetence, and should simply do the honourable thing; that of returning to Rio for good, because coaching at national level is too burdensome a load for him to bear.
With an unlikely second-place finish still possible for the Warriors going into yesterday's match, Namibia were 3-0 up by the half-time whistle, to sound the death knell for a team that has now given all Zimbabweans a bad name outside our borders.
And with yesterday's result, Zimbabwe were effectively eliminated from the 2010 Fifa World Cup and Africa Cup of Nations, leaving Guinea and Kenya, who face each other today in the last match of Group 2, to fight for the sole automatic ticket from this pool, as well as one of eight runner-up places from the 12 qualifying pools.
Yet it is yesterday's treasonous result in Windhoek, which now makes Valinhos' departure from Zimbabwe inevitable. And not only that; in a normal society, Zimbabwe Football Association president Wellington Nyatanga, the man who plucked Valinhos from the wilderness of Brazil in January this year, should also resign IMMEDIATELY, as the coach's failure is a direct result of a sterile leadership, blind loyalty to a coach who showed clearly he was not up to the job from the day he landed on these shores, poor policies that are vague on development, and a self-serving agenda that has seen the Warriors gallivanting around the world on useless fund-raising expeditions in Asia.
And for both Valinhos and Nyatanga, if not the entire Zifa board, to stay on would be an insult to every soccer-loving Zimbabwean and total contempt for the fans, who have always rallied behind the team, until yesterday's slap in the face.
Namibia (3) 4
Zimbabwe (0) 2
GROUP 2
P W D L GF GA Pts
Kenya 5 3 1 1 6 2 10
Guinea 5 2 2 1 6 3 8
Namibia 6 2 0 4 7 12 6
Zimbabwe 6 1 3 2 4 6 6
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