The Sunday Mail
Sports Reporter
Legends Academy, an emerging football development institution, have unleashed yet another promising player after Zimbabwe youth international Sebastien Summerfield made his debut for Swiss outfit FC Kilchberg last week.
While he was making his first appearance for FC Kilchberg, another Legends Academy alumni Callum English-Brown, who finally made the match-day squad for Herentals, was forced to wait longer before playing his first Premiership match.
He was an unused substitute as the Students’ coach, Kumbirai Mutiwekuziva, appeared reluctant to throw the Young Warriors midfielder into the fray and kept trust in his old guard.
The team, however, completed their 2021 Chibuku Super Cup campaign on a losing note after they fell 2-1 to Yadah at the National Sports Stadium.
Yadah found their goals through Godknows Mangani after 12 minutes and Lennox Mucheto, who struck what proved the winner on the stroke of half-time.
Kelvin Bingala had levelled terms for Herentals on the half-hour and English-Brown — touted by his teammates as their own version of Manchester City’s Jack Grealish — could only follow proceedings from the substitutes’ bench.
But there was no such disappointment for Summerfield, with the Zimbabwe Under-20 international making his debut for FC Kilchberg, who compete in the Zurich League.
The Zurich League is one of the second-tier leagues that feed Swiss top-flight teams such FC Basel, Grasshoppers, Lausanne and Young Boys, who recently stunned English giants Manchester United in the Champions League.
The 19-year-old Summerfield moved from Legends via Gateshead FC in England and is now at FC Kilchberg on a short-term contract in order to advance his career and gain more professional first-team matches.
Summerfield was a 50th-minute substitute and he assisted his new team achieve a 2-0 victory over Wettwill-Bonstetten.
His performance won him admiration of the club’s new coach, Davide Molino.
The Young Warriors midfielder said he was hopeful of getting more experience in the Swiss league.
“I moved to the Swiss league to gain more experience playing first-team football against professional players.
“I felt good during my debut and will continue to improve as a player, and I hope we maintain a winning streak until the winter break in December,’’ he said.
Interestingly, he was singled out for special praise last year by national Under-20 coach Tonderai Ndiraya at the COSAFA tournament.
He had been hoping to add to his international experience in December at the COSAFA tournament that will be running under the umbrella of the Africa Union Sports Region Five. But ZIFA decided against registering any Zimbabwean side in the competition, whose draw was conducted by COSAFA in South Africa on Friday night.
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“My plan was to come back home to Zimbabwe in December and participate again in the COSAFA Under-20 tournament.
“It is important to represent the country and stay in touch with teammates as we develop and grow,’’ Summerfield said.
The COSAFA Under-20 would have been an ideal platform that ZIFA could have used to on-board the young talent that has been emerging both locally and from the Diaspora.
It is believed that ZIFA could have used the competition to give players in the Diaspora like Jonah Fabisch, Tawanda Maswanhise, Ethan Kachosa and Isaac Mabaya an opportunity to introduce themselves to the culture of the African game in an age-appropriate international tournament.
Given that some of them represent the future of the Warriors, it would be important that they play with local players and quickly adapt to the environment of the national team at an early stage and ease their way into the senior side.
