BLEEPS AND BLUNDERS Robson Sharuko Senior Sports Editor KLAUS Dieter Pagels’ tiki-taka revolution suffered a severe battering, in a shambolic display of severe defensive frailty at the National Sports Stadium yesterday, as the Warriors leaked four goals for the first time at home, in either a World Cup or Nations Cup qualifier. The German coach failed his first big home test, as the Egyptians blew numerous holes into his defenceless project, with the Warriors conceding their highest number of goals, in a game of this magnitude in their backyard, since their first home tie against Cameroon at Rufaro on November 17, 1980. Just three months after making this country believe in him, and his sleek football philosophy, with a refreshing performance against the Pharaohs in Alexandria, Pagels’ revolution was in ruins yesterday after a reality check that was both sobering and ruthless. The statistics are damning. Yesterday’s game marked the first time in 33 years, which is the entire Warriors’ football history, that a visiting team has scored four goals here either in a World Cup or Nations Cup qualifier. It was the 29th home tie for the Warriors, in the World Cup, and their sixth loss in their backyard and Egypt joined Nigeria, Guinea, South Africa, Algeria and Cameroon as countries who have come here and stolen all three points in the battle for the World Cup. But it was the FIRST home defeat for the Warriors, in either a World Cup or Nations Cup tie, at home in NINE years, the last one having come on May 9. 2004, when Jay Jay Okocha and his Super Eagles ran rings around Rahman Gumbo’s men, in a comprehensive 0-3 loss. It’s the first time that the Warriors have lost back-to-back home matches, in a World Cup qualifying campaign, in their history after Egypt became the second team, in the current qualifiers, to take all three points at the National Sports Stadium with Guinea having won 1-0. It’s also the first time, since the World Cup Africa Zone qualifiers assumed a group format during the battle for a place at the ‘90 World Cup finals in Italy, that the Warriors find themselves with just one point from four games. Yesterday, the Warriors suffered their heaviest home defeat, in a World Cup qualifier, to a North African team, with the last one having come when they fell 1-2 to Algeria, at the National Sports Stadium, on 25 June ‘89. The giant stadium hasn’t been a good hunting ground for the Warriors and this was their fourth World Cup/Nations Cup game, since returning to play there in that match against Cape Verde three years ago, and they have only one win, against Liberia, a draw and two losses. Pagels insists that he is building a new team, and trying to impose a new philosophy of how football should be played, and his tiki-taka revolves around his men playing the ball from the back, passing it around, a copy and paste of the style turned into an irresistible global brand, and a destructive tool, by the masters of Barcelona. But after yesterday’s disastrous show, in which this style was rather a weakness, instead of a strength to our players, whose technical shortcomings meant they were trying to do far much more, just to stick to the style than to find the quickest way to attack the Pharaohs, questions will inevitably be asked. Those who cried out loud and clear, that this team was lightweight in its defensive link and their pleas for Willard Katsande to be considered were ignored, will no doubt wake up today feeling they were right, to a large extent, and the midfield strongman would have made a big difference. Those who felt that our central defenders needed an experienced hand, to groom them in the unforgiving terrain of international football, will also feel vindicated after a lacklustre display by that department provided a highway, wider than both lanes of Seke Road, towards Washington Arubi’s goal. That Felix Chindungwe was withdrawn, just after 45 minutes, summed up the chaos that had reduced our central defence into something closer to a centre-backing pairing one expects at Pamushana High School than one that should be providing the last line of cover, in-field, in a World Cup assignment. To single out Chindungwe as the fall guy, in his first big game for the Warriors, would be inappropriate because the exposure wasn’t only limited to him but also to Lincoln Zvasiya, who should have been providing the leadership, but who came short in that first half. There was more to our defensive weaknesses yesterday that the two central defenders. Now and again, our fullbacks Ocean Mushure and Partson Jaure, turned to see that the person they were supposed to have been picking, after the Egyptians had swiftly turned defence into attack, was racing unopposed in acres of space on the wing. And that’s how the first goal was engineered by the Pharaohs, they had space wide on the flank, time to pick the forwards who were running in for the kill and, exposed, Arubi had no chance. Tiki-taka is fashionable but for it to be very effective it has to have a creative hub, of all the moves, somewhere among its ball-playing midfielders, players who find comfort in receiving the ball and passing it to the next man, providing support and opening up the gaps. We didn’t have such men yesterday and the more our players tried, to fit into that style and play according to instructions, the more they shed off their natural playing touch and the more they made some basic but fatal errors. It didn’t take long for them to start appearing as robots, in those defensive areas and in that central area of the field, programmed for a certain responsibility, and the sleek Egyptians would just eliminate them by taking just two touches in midfield and finding a man breaking down the wing. Interestingly, our first goal was a one-route affair, something that appears to be from a bygone era in this new regime, with Tafadzwa Rusike lifting the ball over the Egyptian defence, rather than spraying it around to the closest teammate, and the reliable Knowledge Musona, what a player, took his chance with aplomb for his second goal against the Pharaohs. Musona was unlucky not to have got his double, something that his grand efforts clearly deserved on the afternoon, after his trickery down the wing fooled not one, but two, Egyptian defenders and his drive from the angle crashed into the boots of the ‘keeper. Pagels said this was not a dead rubber, and he was right, there was more at stake but if he really meant what he said, why then did he leave himself vulnerable to criticism that he took this game lightly and turned it into a show for his experiments? His decision to leave out Khama Billiat was a brave one but it could have made sense if those who had been put into his place performed and, crucially, if his introduction did not breathe life into the Warriors the way it did just after the break. The Warriors are on the road for the next game, in Conakry against Guinea this coming weekend, and that’s another huge test for Pagels and his revolution. Admittedly, the coach needs time but when you concede six goals against the same opponents in back-to-back matches, when the defence he singled out as his Achilles Heel in Alexandria performs even worse after some panel-beating, when only one striker has found the target and the midfield continues to misfire, it’s time for a reality check. The Pharaohs have provided plenty of that in just two matches. In Alexandria we escaped with an honourable loss, if that exists at all, because our goalkeeper was the man-of-the-match and the Pharaohs were not, under pressure at home, as deadly in terms of converting their chances as they were yesterday. Yesterday, they created as many chances as they did at home, which means nothing had changed from the way we defended against them, and this time their conversion rate, with Mohamed Salah at his brilliant best, was exceptional. Pagels still could get it right in the long-term and has already found a starting point, but he needs to shed his stubborn streak and start listening to some words of reason. Long-term projects can’t just click overnight and there is a lot of youth in this Warriors’ team to give hope for a brighter future but Pagels can only get it right if he sorts out his defence. Without a firm defence, all his good intentions will go down the drain.
Posted on: Mon, 10 Jun 2013 08:20:25 +0000
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