INJURY is the worst way for a footballer to end thier career but it is a sad reality in football.
BY MUNYARADZI MADZOKERE
The game has been robbed of a string of talented players due to injury and this year CAPS United fans were forced to come to terms with the reality that their veteran forward Leonard Tsipa had played his last for Makepekepe.
Tsipa was forced to call time on his career after suffering a groin injury early in the season in which he had hoped to play a key role in their return to the prestigious CAF Champions League campaign.
Tsipa had started the campaign with very high hopes after winning the Castle Lager Premier Soccer League Golden Boot for the second time in his career, enroute to guiding the Green Machine to their first premiership title since 2005, last year.
While the 35-year-old former striker feels he still had a lot to prove in the league in spite of his age, fate ended Tsipa’s turbulent 17-year career punctuated by his off-field struggles.
From marrying when he was too young and as a result turning down a life-changing mega deal at Austrian giants Rapid Vienna to be with his pregnant young wife, to quitting football to do menial jobs in England, drug abuse and going through a heartbreaking divorce in 2010, Tsipa’s story reads like a movie script.
Opening up for the first time on his ups and downs of his career, Tsipa revealed how he lost all he had worked for following his divorce, including a house and how he went back to live at his parent’s house sleeping on the couch for a couple of years.
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He thought his career was over such that when an unnamed Botswana club gave him a chance in 2014, he just took the money and ran away.
But in all his trials, the fact remains that Tsipa is undoubtedly one of the best strikers ever to emerge on the local scene.
And his swansong season was sweetest as he finished with a league title triumph with CAPS United, the season top scorer’s award and runners-up medal for Soccer Star of the Year accolade.
“To be honest, I am happy with my career looking at what I did in the Zimbabwe league. I am a role model to other upcoming players but it has not been an easy road to get here,” Tsipa told The Sports Hub in an exclusive interview.
Tsipa has three league titles won in the CAPS United’s green and white strip, while he also reached the semifinals of the Caf Champions League after crossing the great divide to join Dynamos in 2008.
A winner of five top scorers’ awards, first at a Cosafa Under-20 competition, then at a Sasol Under-23 Five Nations tournament in 2002, 2002 BP Cup and twice in the domestic Premiership (2005 and 2016), Tsipa opened up on his rather exasperating football life.
One of his biggest regrets was missing a chance to join an Austrian side Rapid Vienna when he was at his youthful best in 2002.
“I remember I went to Rapid Vienna for a month-long trial, and then I got homesick. I had left a pregnant wife here and I was always on the phone calling home and I could not concentrate on football. It’s an opportunity I regretted missing out on with hindsight,” he revealed.
“I had married early and for a footballer, I don’t think it’s wise to marry early because it affects the career decisions one makes. If I didn’t have a wife I would have stayed and focused on only advancing my career.
“The Austrian league is a shorter route into the German Bundesliga and I am confident I would have made it big. They wanted to sign me and loan me out to a division one side but I told them that I wanted to go home.”
After a stint in Yugoslavia at FK Javor, alongside the late Blessing Makunike and Mike Temwanjira, Tsipa came back to win back to back league titles with the Green Machine under Charles Mhlauri in 2004 and 2005.
He had already made a mark for the junior national teams; the under-20s and later the under-23s, notably scoring when the latter beat Denmark 2-1 in the Sasol tourney in South Africa.
With no lucrative bids coming for top clubs in Europe, Tsipa went on to quit football for two years when he was just 24, to do menial jobs in England.
“In 2005 we went on a trip to England for a tournament and the bulk of the players remained there.
After another successful season with the club, we were called into the Africa Cup of Nations provisional squad with Ashley Rambanapasi.
“But we were left out of the final squad and out of frustration we decided to buy our own tickets and go to the UK since we already had active visas. I stayed there for two years doing menial jobs, and it was not that bad because that’s when I put together money to buy a stand and started building my own house,” Tsipa said.
Tsipa came back in 2008 in a bid to solve his marital problem with wife Jackie Chirimuhanzu and joined then champions Dynamos, helping them reach the champions’ league semifinals.
The biggest challenge in Tsipa’s life has never been taking on defenders or scoring goals, but a nasty divorce he went through in 2010,which seemed to have broken him for good.
“My first wife was the reason why I had come back from England as I tried to save my marriage. It didn’t help and we broke up but that’s life. It was the most difficult period of my life because she sold the house and left with my children and up to now I have never seen them again, seven years later,” Tsipa said.
“Things just fell apart for me. I lost everything. I could not play football and it was an all-time low for me. I even went to stay with my parents in Mbare and slept on the sofa. And for a public figure, I really became the laughing stock. Maybe if my kids had been around I would not have gone through what I went through,” he said.
Just as he had resigned to the belief that his football career was well and truly over in 2014, Tsipa received an offer to play in Botswana.
For a person in dire straits, he signed a two-year contract, took the money, played two games, and came back to Zimbabwe.
He breached a contract that would have prohibited him from playing for any other club for the next two years.
“I played two games and I came back to be with my new lover, who is now my wife, Samantha. And after breaching the contract, I could not play for the next two years but then I thought I was a spent force. I did not care anymore about football.
“But my new wife encouraged me to come back to football. she helped me to get over drug abuse, even taught me to pray and to go to church. And that is how I managed to bounce back strong. I even went to Botswana and begged for clearance before joining CAPS United again in 2015,” he said.
It was a happy ending to Tsipa’s football story who bowed out as a Zimbabwe champion and a king of goals last year.
It was a journey that began when he scored four past a CAPS Utd Under-13 team when he turned out for a Mbare Sports For All team in a team that also had the likes of Romeo Kabesha and Thomas Sweswe in the mid-1990s.
Having been a ball boy during the 1995 All Africa Games for the Harare giants, all he wanted was to one day play football professionally.
“I used to watch all those CAPS United greats like Lloyd Chitembwe, Joe Mugabe, to name a few as a ball boy and it motivated me. I always said one day I will be a top player, especially after 1995 all Africa Games, where I was a ball boy,” recalled Tsipa.
After announcing his retirement from football, Tsipa was subsequently roped into the Caps United technical team, a role he is relishing as he looks to give back to the sport that gave him fame.
It’s the club’s intention to help him get his coaching badges while he is at the club.
“I am a football person and I see myself remaining in football for as long as I am fit. So far, I have thoroughly enjoyed learning from Lloyd Chitembwe and the other coaches as part of the team,” Tsipa said.
