The battle for football supremacy between South Africa and Zimbabwe comes to Rufaro this afternoon when the two nations clash in an African Under-23 Championship qualifier, second round, first leg.
BY MICHAEL MADYIRA
It is 23 years since the two nations first met in a football competition since 1980, to be precise August 16 1994 when Bafana Bafana marked their readmission into international football with an Afcon qualifier against the Warriors at the National Sports Stadium.
A poetic dribbler, Peter Ndlovu grabbed a brace as the fans danced to the rhythmic atmosphere. Rahman Gumbo also scored while magical Vitalis Takawira spiced the afternoon with a strike for Zimbabwe, to emphatically win 4-1.
Trevor Caresle-Juul was Zifa president then, while the late Renhard Fabisch led a technical team that had Sunday Chidzambwa as his assistant.
But encounters between the two sides have been stormy since then, including the July 9 2000 tie at the National Sports Stadium that led to 13 fans dying in a stampede.
Delron Buckley scored and sparked the unrest by gesturing a shut-up finger sign at Zimbabwean fans in a 2002 World Cup, Group 5 match. Zimbabwe is still mourning fateful day, but adding salt to injury is Buckley who professed ignorance about the incident.
“Sorry man. I haven’t got the slightest idea about what you are talking about,” Buckley told Standardsport on Friday.
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The utterances could make coach Kalisto Pasuwa’s charges step into battle as wounded men this afternoon.
Pasuwa is carrying the audacious task of qualifying for the 2016 Olympic Games and claiming a berth at the African Under-23 Championship is the route.
Zimbabwe are just 180 minutes away from qualifying for Senegal 2015 as they bid for the Olympics.
It appears a colossal assignment for the former Dynamos gaffer who is scheming against a side that dumped Zimbabwe out of qualification for the Olympics’ last edition.
A generation led by Friday Phiri bowed out of the 2012 Olympic Games after South African clubs refused to release Zimbabwe’s star players Knowledge Musona and Khama Billiat.
But this time around, Mamelodi Sundowns and Ajax Cape Town have made available Kuda Mahachi and Thomas Chideu respectively as the only foreign-based players in Pasuwa’s war chest.
A total of 16 Zimbabwean players ply their trade in the rich South African top-flight league.
Captain Wisdon Mutasa is fresh from a trial stint in Slovakia and stands to make history if he leads the Young Warriors to the Olympics.
“Yes, we are ready for South Africa,” said Mutasa.
“I know they are a good side but we can do it. As the captain, it would be great for me to become the first to lead the team to the Olympics but what is important right now is teamwork. We have to play as a unit. It would be good for us to take a healthy lead before we visit them. It is all about playing according to the coach’s instructions.”
Mutasa has so far led the team that qualified for next September’s African Games.
The last meeting between Zimbabwe and South Africa in any men’s football competition was on September 10 2013 in an international friendly match won 2-1 by the Warriors.
