The Sunday Mail
What’s the point of having a rule that says a player who accumulates six yellow cards or more during a 30-match season is ineligible for Soccer Stars of the Year selection?
Are we looking for saints or the best XI stars?
Getting booked is part of the game, it’s a punishment on its own. Now because of that six-yellow-cards-rule we are punishing the player twice — or even thrice.
A lad is booked during a match, make that one. When the yellow cards reach three the boy is suspended for a single match, make that two.
And when those cards get to six the player gets suspended again but this time there is the icing of being ineligible for Soccer Stars of the Year selection, make that three.
The rule, which the Premier Soccer League and their sponsors have never really explained to satisfaction, seems to put defenders and defensive midfielders at a disadvantage.
This group gets booked much more than any other on the park.
For some coaches like Brazilian World Cup winning coach Phillip Scolari, the mark of a good defensive midfielder can be measured in part by the number of cards he takes in defence of the cause.
Zimbabwe is one of a few countries with such a silly rule.
If France had that clause, Ghanaian midfielder Michael Essien would not have won the Ligue 1 Player of the Year award in 2005. During that campaign the then Lyon midfielder was cautioned 11 times and sent off once.
French legend Zinedine Zidane won the 2006 Fifa World Cup Golden Ball despite head-butting Italian defender Marco Materazzi in the final.
Our journalists should be at the forefront of questioning such good-for-nothing rules.
They can’t just be called in to validate a process — the Soccer Stars of the Year selection — which they have little say in as far as criteria is concerned.
Is the Sports Writers Association of Zimbabwe operational?
But then again some of these soccer journos (I am not one) cannot be trusted when it comes to choosing the best players and coach.
Their reputation precedes them. Remember how Evans Chikwaikwai won the big one ahead of Edward Sadomba? How about the Walter Tshuma scandal?
A repeat of last year’s episode which saw ZPC Kariba clean-sweep the top three player awards as well as the Coach of the Year gong will be a disaster.
Now that I have taken aim at journalists, let me get this one out of the way.
Back in the day, we used to mute the television set and follow football commentary on the radio but now you can do that at your own ears’ peril.
Charles Mabika, Evans Mambara, Chrispen Choga Gavhure, Deans Patrick Mutume, Nesbert Nasasara and Eric Knight, among others, made one feel like part of the action even though they were as far as Maronda Mashanu School in Manyene, Chivhu.
These days you get a lot of shouting and the over use of superlatives: every goal is beautiful, every save superb.
Va Shagare exits the scene!
VaShagare is the founder of DeMbare DotComs and can be contacted on that Facebook page as well as [email protected]
