Harare — The flight from Harare was quite bumpy as the small chartered South African plane, carrying the Warriors, struggled in the turbulence as it made its way to Windhoek, the capital of Namibia.

Along the way, we stopped in Bulawayo to pick up Gibson Homela, who was then a member of the Warriors' technical team, before proceeding with the final leg of our flight to Windhoek.

It was a very uncomfortable journey and there were a number of concerned faces among the Warriors as the plane battled endlessly against the turbulence.

With memories of the tragedy which wiped out a generation of the finest Zambian footballers in a plane crash off the coast of Gabon in 1993 still fresh in our minds, there were moments when we all thought it was only a matter of time before we went down.

That our national coach then was Ian Porterfield, the Scotsman who had bravely guided Zambia to the final of 1994 Nations Cup, made it virtually impossible for us to take our thoughts away from that disaster in Gabon.

It was 1997.

Our mission was a maiden Cosafa Castle Cup tie against Namibia's Brave Warriors at the Independence Stadium in Windhoek.

In those days the sponsors of the tournament, South African Breweries, used to send planes to take teams to away matches and so we got a chartered flight from Harare to Windhoek.

The game was in good shape in Southern Africa -- Bafana Bafana had won the Nations Cup finals the previous year and Orlando Pirates had won the African Cup of Club Champions in 1995.

So the sponsors were pouring money into football and the game was alive and well with the future looking very bright.

Those were the days of innocence for the Cosafa Castle Cup and the sponsors would reserve a number of seats for a travelling battalion of football writers on the same flight with the national team.

So there were a number of journalists on our flight to Windhoek that year -- Tendai Ndemera, Michael Kariati, Lovemore Banda and Eric Knight.

Then, just like now, the relationship between the national coach and the travelling crew of journalists was not the best -- strained by a belief among the reporters that the team was losing its way while the coach felt the criticism had been personalised.

Porterfield had arrived in Zimbabwe with the reputation of a man who could turn around teams in a crisis and make them competitive once again.

His ability to rebuild the Zambian team after that tragedy in Gabon, and take them to the final of the Nations Cup where they narrowly lost 1-2 to Nigeria, was the stuff that had consolidated his reputation.

So he appeared the logical choice for a Zimbabwean team still reeling from the effects of the dismissal of Reinhard Fasbich as national coach.

But Porterfield struggled to fill the big shoes of the late German firebrand and by the time we arrived in Windhoek, the relationship between the coach and a number of the journalists had long broken down.

Even then we expected our Warriors to win in Namibia and we were so sure they could go on and win their first major silverware since their triumph in the Cecafa Challenge Cup at Rufaro in 1985.

On March 16, 1997, with more than 12 000 fans at the Independence Stadium in Windhoek, the game got underway with the odds suggesting that the Warriors would clear this hurdle.

Porterfield threw Gift Muzadzi into goals and his four-man defence had Calisto Pasuwa, Kaitano Tembo, Dumisani Mpofu and Chamu Musanhu, giving it a distinct Dynamos identity.

His midfield had Edelbert Dinha, Lloyd Chitembwe, the late Benjamin Nkonjera and Masimba Dinyero.

His attack had Alois Bunjira and Gilbert Mushangazhike.

After a goalless first half, the Warriors took the lead when Mushangazhike converted from the spot in the 76th minute and they appeared to be holding on to their lead until three minutes from time.

Zambian referee Paul Kanyonga awarded the home side a penalty in the 87th minute and midfielder Johannes Hindjou converted to send the game into extra-time. And with just a minute of extra-time remaining, the Namibians were awarded a second penalty, the third of the day, and once again the nerveless Hindjou coolly converted and the Warriors were down and out.

Eleven Years Down The Line

It's been 11 years since that day when the drama unfolded at the Independence Stadium and the Warriors were beaten by the Brave Warriors -- effectively marking the beginning of the end for Porterfield's tenure as our national team coach.

I hadn't been back in Windhoek since that defeat.

On Thursday, I flew back into the Namibian capital, for the first time in 11 years, for the Warriors' 2010 World Cup/Nations Cup Group Two qualifier against the Brave Warriors here today.

Of the players that were on that flight 11 years ago for the Cosafa Castle Cup, only Mushangazhike remains.

Muzadzi, Pasuwa, Tembo, Chitembwe and Dinyero have all gone into coaching and management of clubs.

Musanhu is now living in England, Bunjira is still playing Division One football in South Africa and could become a good journalist when he retires, while Stewart Murisa, who came in for Mushangazhike in the 95th minute, has long left the game.

Ronald Sibanda, who was introduced as a 106th minute replacement of Masimba Dinyero, is now living in Botswana while it's been a long time since I heard the whereabouts of Morgan Nkathazo, who came in as a 65th minute replacement of Nkonjera.

Sadly Nkonjera, whom we called Makanaky, is now late. And so is Porterfield.

But the Warriors are still alive -- although not in good health -- and today they will complete their Group Two games of the 2010 World Cup/Nations Cup qualifiers with a battle against Namibia at the Independence Stadium.

It's All Gloomy Here

So the Warriors' fate is not in their hands and they will be hoping that the gods of football can produce one final dramatic twist and they win here and Guinea fail to win at home against Kenya and, hopefully, they squeeze through as one of the best eight runners-up.

Or the Warriors could hope to win here by a big scoreline, let's say 4-0, and then hope that the Kenyans can hold Guinea in Conakry so that Valinhos' men could again squeeze through as one of the best eight runners-up.

For if the Warriors win and Guinea draw, then the two teams will end up with the same number of points -- nine -- and it will go down to the calculator to see who finishes second in the group.

The first consideration, in the event of a tie in points, would be goal difference for all the group matches and Guinea have an advantage in that they beat Namibia 4-0 in Conakry.

So a 4-0 win for the Warriors, in the event of a Guinea/Kenya draw, will be enough to take us into second place because we have a lightly better ratio in other matches in the group compared to the West Africans.

But all this could have been avoided.

Why did we fail to beat Kenya at home? Why did we fail to beat Guinea at home with all the chances that we created that afternoon? Why did we drop four points at home which would by now have given us the ticket into the next stage?

Why were we so terrible in front of goal to such an extent that we only have two goals to our credit in the entire campaign -- both scored by Mushangazhike in that 2-0 win at home?

No wonder why it's all gloomy here.

The Mushangazhike Factor

A number of supporters turned on Gilbert Mushangazhike in our last match against Guinea and held him responsible for the goalless draw after he missed a number of good chances.

Yes, Mushangazhike knows that, at least, he should have scored once that day because he got a number of very good chances.

He understands that the fans' reaction comes from frustration because the supporters will always want their team to win and the Warriors have not been doing just that in this campaign.

But do we have to heap all the blame on Mushangazhike simply because he missed three good chances against Guinea?

I beg to differ.

Instead of blaming the technical shortcomings of Mushangazhike and holding him responsible, as some of the fans did in that game against Guinea, for where we are, I see a sad picture of a malfunctioning national football system and our struggle in this campaign is a direct result of that.

I look back 11 years down the line, when we came to Namibia for the Cosafa Castle Cup and lost, and I see that it was Mushangazhike whom we trusted to lead our line of attack in that game.

Eleven years down the line, we return to Namibia and I once again look at whom we will we will trust to lead our line of attack, and I find that once again it's the same man -- Gilbert Mushangazhike.

Eleven years have passed, but still we have a football system that has not produced a player good enough to replace Mushangazhike in leading the attack of our Warriors.

It's the youth development structures, which we neglected in the crazy years when all the focus was on Reinhard Fabisch and his Dream Team, that have come back to haunt us and it's very unfair to blame Mushangazhike for that.

It's a national problem where we all seem to concentrate on the Premiership and the national team, with little being done to reward the men who are toiling every day to try and produce future national stars, which is responsible for the mess that we find ourselves in.

It's a national tragedy, where we deliberately encouraged junior coaches to cheat and field over-aged players in junior tournaments, all for the sake of covering themselves in glory at the expense of development, which is responsible for the mess that we find ourselves in.

It's a national problem, where Eddie "Mboma" Nyatanga, the supporters' leader, is more prominent than Ali "Baba" Dube, that dedicated coach of junior players in Bulawayo who nurtured the likes of Peter Ndlovu, which is responsible for the mess that we find ourselves in.

When you have a Premiership leadership that is only concerned about the first team and not the junior development structures of their clubs, then you know for real that we are being led by people whose commitment to football is questionable.

When you have a Zifa leadership that is only concerned about the glamour that comes with the big profile of the Warriors and apparently does not seem to care about what happens to our Under-17 national team and the rot of age-cheating in our schools, then you know we are being led by people whose commitment to the game is questionable.

When you have sponsors who only want to invest in tournaments that involve the Premiership clubs and nothing into junior development, then you know that we have a serious problem.

Because of that, we now have a national football structure that has failed to produce a replacement for Gilbert Mushangazhike -- 11 years down the line.

And when he fails to convert some of those chances, we are quick to try and hang him as if it is his problem that our football system has failed to produce a player to fill his shoes.

What a shame!

And it's not Mushangazhike alone. Why have we failed to produce the next Peter Ndlovu? Why have we failed to produce the next Tauya Murewa? Why have we failed to produce the next Joel Shambo?

Take a closer look at those issues and you will see that it's a bigger problem than laying all the blame on Gilbert Mushangazhike.

At this rate, I won't be surprised if Valinhos announces that he has recalled Ronald Sibanda into the national team.

Bafana Bafana and Benni

At the OR Tambo International Airport in Johannesburg on Thursday, we met the Bafana Bafana team as they made their way to Equatorial Guinea for a meaningless Nations Cup qualifier.

Bafana Bafana are already out of the tournament in Angola in 2010, and if they were not hosting the World Cup in the same year, they would also have bowed out by now.

They are a team that is the middle of the same crisis that confronts our own national team.

As the Bafana Bafana players made their way to their plane, I saw Benni McCarthy -- the Blackburn striker who 10 years ago propelled this team to second place in the Nations Cup finals in Burkina Faso.

I realised that, 10 years after Burkina Faso, Bafana Bafana have not found a replacement for Benni and if they find a reason for that, then they will get a solution to their problems.

Yes, just like us in the Dream Team days, South Africa lost their focus on junior football development when they won the Nations Cup in 1996.

All the concentration went to the national team and its big name stars -- Doctor Khumalo, John "Shoes" Moshoeu, Lucas Radebe -- and no one cared for what was happening in Soweto or in Durban.

So the same township structures that had created the Doctor Khumalos of their world were neglected and left to rot while all the big money went to the big boys who were even qualifying for the World Cup finals in 1998 and 2002.

Now six years after they went to South Korea and Japan for the 2002 World Cup finals, Bafana Bafana are not even good enough to qualify for the 2010 Nations Cup finals.

Ten years after Benni exploded onto the scene and his goals propelled them into the final of the Nations Cup in Burkina Faso, Bafana Bafana have no striker to get them the goals to qualify for Angola.

Some Things Never Change

The last time we were here in 1997, the defeat by Namibia marked the beginning of the end of Ian Porterfield's time as national coach of the Warriors.

When his team failed to qualify for the 1998 Nations Cup finals, Porterfield had to go and there were very few people who were sympathetic to him when the end finally came.

Somehow I get this feeling that the same thing is about to happen to Valinhos -- that this is the beginning of the end of the road for the Brazilian and there will be very few people sympathetic to him.

Of course, Valinhos has battled against serious odds in this campaign and sometimes it is easy to feel sorry for him.

But there have also been key occasions when his tactical madness had a direct bearing on the outcome of the result in a crucial match and his decision to pull out Tinashe Nengomasha in that game against Guinea was a moment of pure madness. The Kaizer Chiefs midfielder was the best player on the pitch that day but for some strange reason, Valinhos decided to pull him out and in the process destroyed the shape of his team.

That was not the only major decision that Valinhos has got wrong at a key moment in the game.

You get this feeling that, just like his countryman Joel Santana in South Africa, Valinhos needs a long time -- about two to three years -- to finally get to grips with the demands of football in this part of the world.

Let's Meet Again in 2011

So if our boys bow out today then we will have to wait for the beginning of the 2012 Nations Cup qualifiers and the 2014 World Cup qualifiers.

That means about three years without a major football game for the Warriors and their fans.

Now that is very sad.

For it would certainly mean the end of the international careers of a number of these Warriors, including their skipper Benjani Mwaruwari, his deputy Zvenyika Makonese, defence pillar James Matola, midfield general Esrom Nyandoro and striker Gilbert Mushangazhike.

I doubt if Nengomasha will still be around by the time we kick-start the battle to qualify for the 2012 Nations Cup and 2014 World Cup finals. Pride Tafirenyika will be 26 by then and will probably be around while Ovidy Karuru will be between 23 and 24.

Zhaimu Jambo will be around 25 and still young enough to play in those qualifiers.

Maybe this generation that is here -- Jambo, Karuru, Tafirenyika, Onismor Bhasera -- is the foundation on which we should start building for the future.

But zvinorwadza vakomana!

David Mandigora

The Dynamos coach has had more success this season than his boss at the national team Valinhos.

He has done very well to take his DeMbare team into the semi-finals of the Champions League against all the odds and you have to give him credit for that.

Dynamos will now have to move mountains to get into the final following their 0-1 defeat at home to Cotonsport in the first leg of the semi-finals.

I was critical of Mandigora for his decision to trust a negative approach to the game by throwing in Thomas Sweswe into a defensive midfield position for the game against Cotonsport.

I thought it was a display of cowardice at home where we needed to be adventurous and put the Cameroonians under intense pressure.

My feeling was that Sweswe would make us more defensive, and I believe I was proved right, and the midfield initiative would be handed to the visitors and that could cause us problems.

My gamble would have been to throw in Desmond Maringwa straight into battle and I was happy when his introduction in the second half blew wind into the Dynamos sails and Phillip Marufu should have headed home his perfect cross.

On Thursday I boarded the same Air Zimbabwe plane to Johannesburg with Mandigora on our trip to Namibia for the World Cup qualifier.

What impressed me most about him was the fact that he acknowledged that it was part of my job to be critical of him when I believed that he had come short, and to salute him if he does well.

So when we met on the plane it was business as usual - no sub-plots taken from the criticism, no vendettas, nothing.

Just a professional relationship in which the coach understood that I had a job to do and he also had a job to do.

Now compare that to other coaches, especially those who believe that we are the reason why they are not here or there, and you will get to understand what exactly I mean.

Thanks, Yogi, for the professionalism and hopefully you guys will win the second leg 2-1 and we will all celebrate DeMbare's qualification for the final of the Champions League.

If you ask me, I think that is possible because I believe that DeMbare have better chances of winning this Champions League than in 1998.

Edward Sadomba -- Where the hell are you?

Where is Edward Sadomba?

What a headline!

The Dynamos striker, we are told, is club-hunting in Austria while my sources in South Africa have told me that he has signed a deal with Platinum Stars.

But did he have to slip out of the country under that veil of secrecy? Did he need to go under that blanket of secrecy?

Wasn't it only fair that he should advise his coach Mandigora kuti Mukoma Yogi ndakumopota ndakadai so that he could plan for the next big game against the Cameroonians? Wasn't it only fair that he should advise his chairman Partson Moyo that he would be leaving for this and that destination?

Wasn't it only fair that he should advise his national coach Valinhos that he should not consider him for this game against Namibia?

When I think about what this Dynamos family did to help him meet the costs of burying his sister and to start his family, I get this feeling that Sadomba did not handle this issue very well.

Yes, he gave Dynamos fans some great memories, but in turn they also gave him the big stage and the support -- even when the going was tough and he had not scored in five Champions League games -- to remain focused.

It's a fact that Sadomba would not have had this profile -- even if he had played twice as good as he has done this season -- if he was playing for Shooting Stars and not Dynamos. It's a fact that Pride Tafirenyika has played as well as, if not better, than Sadomba this season and the only problem is that he plays for the Wild Boys and not the Glamour Boys.