Origins of Highlanders F.C of Zimbabwe

Highlanders Football Club was formed in 1926 by the Ndebele King (Mzilikazi kaMashobane)'s grandsons, Albert and Rhodes who named the team Lions Football Club. Njube, the son of King Lobengula, (son of King Mzilikazi, son of Mashobane), fathered the two.

Based in Matebeleland (Mthwakazi), at probably the first formal settlement in Bulawayo known as Makokoba Township, it comprised of players from the surrounding areas like Mzilikazi and Barbourfields.

The name changed to Matebeleland Highlanders Football Club in 1936.
The team accepted an invitation to participate in the Rhodesia National Football League (RNFL) in 1966 after which it was drafted into the Second Division playing at Greenspan grounds.

Highlanders FC gained promotion after topping the league on their first year. By 1970, the team played in the Super League but struggled to survive leading to their relegation to the First Division. Barry Daka left for coal miners, Wankie FC, who won a Cup while in the First Division.

Despite the mere 7 points of the previous campaign that saw them relegated, they were in the top flight exactly a year later.

In 1972, Tony McIlveen of Northern Ireland using his semi-professional experience from his team Crusaders FC of the Irish League joined Bosso, boosting the team‟s excellence.
So much was his influence that in 1973, Highlanders FC won their first major cup, the Chibuku Trophy. They beat respectable copper miners, Mangula FC at Rufaro Stadium.

(The author, Keutsepilemang Ndebele, is a coach and coach instructor, holds Advanced Diploma of Foreign Coaches and Trainers on Brazilian Football CAF License and the English FA International License. He assisted in FIFA/IOC Solidarity Committee course instructor obtaining certification.
His is a former Technical Advisor of Highlanders F.C and Witbank Spurs, a former Team Manager and coach of Railstars FC and lower Division teams. He is the founding Director of Keutsepilemang Football Academy and e-Diski Football Academy.)

SAFCA Nkangala media release

South Africa Football Coaches Association (SAFCA) recently launched regional structures which in turn have the mandate to unveil LFA structures, in a meeting in Kwagga C, Thembisile Hani LFA, on the 8th November 2014.

The media briefing will take place at the Protea Hotel Conference Hall, Cnr Jellicoe and Beatie Streets, Emalahleni on 02 January 2015 at 15H00.

This press conference will follow a meeting that will map a way forward for the organisation of coaches with a strategy expected to lead the way for successful development programs. 

Previous structures came and went without any meaningful developments or any knowledge of their existence or programs.

As valuable stakeholders in the community development, the meeting would mean nothing without your valuable presence, which is why we cordially invite you to attend this very important Media

According to the SAFCA Nkangala Region Chairman, Keutsepilemang Ndebele, the media conference will follow a meeting of the local federation Technical Officers and the Emalahleni coaches, who are expected to unveil their structure.

 

The African football debacle

Maybe South Africa, Mali, Zambia, Burkina Faso or Zimbabwe could have won the 2014 Brazil FifaWorld Cup, had they hired Joachim Loew, Alejandro Pasella or Louis van Gaal. I am certain The Super Eagles of Nigeria or The Elephants of Cote D’Ivoire could have been champions if they stayed, played and worked in Germany under Joachim Leow since, at least, 2002.

You can take to the bank the fact that Phillip Lahm, Toni Kroos, Manuel Neuer and crew could have delayed their flight to Brazil for the World Cup and fought on the pitch, had they been under the banner and authority of Cameroon Football Association.

 

Lionel Messi, Higuain, Mascherano, Lavezzi and the squad could have received their money sent from Accra by plane, had they been under the control of Ghana. I am under no illusion that Stephen Keshi, John Appiah, Gordon Igusand or even Keutsepilemang Ndebele for that matter, could have reached the final of the 2014 Fifa World Cup in Brazil with Die Mannschaft under the Germany administration.

 

Where lays the African football problem?  Regardless, all African coaches lose their jobs in preference to the knowledgeable and expensive expatriate coaches. The African football system is sinking. One learns from the best, the champions.

Germany today rules the world football today because of a class of players they manufactured. I handed over a programme to identify and nurture some talent for the 2006 and 2010 Fifa World Cup to some country’s association as a thirty year old some years back. I still have copies, but as you as well know, they are now as useful and cryptic scrolls with the language of the aliens.

All countries claim to have developmental structures and programmes; South Africa, Zimbabwe and Namibia included. Mzansi have a fair share of structures in place, but these are very much mediocre and unproductive. The funding is satisfactory but it could be better. The problem is that not many people who need to be hands-on are involved. The other issue is that the programme promotes events than processes. Information dissemination is really bad.

In Zimbabwe, the structures are solid and one can easily put their fingers on the pulse, from schools to the clubs. Organised school programmes cater for all according to their abilities to deliver. Clubs depend on these development sides they call juniors to usher new talent. Few lazy teams get to the market every now and then while their products are supped by the other teams who cannot afford to splash cash.

Some clubs find themselves answering calls from suitors each year. Potential superstars are known and their ripe date gets eagerly waited. The weekly fixtures, results and logs are available for the public at the Notice Boards at the offices, in the print media, electronic media and social networks. Hence, the influx of players to the ABSA Premier League, and most of the imports from there have dominated the league.

The story is almost similar in Namibia and the common factor with Zimbabwe is limited funding. One walks into the national office and requests the database with regional players in all age groups.

The regional structures have a direction to follow, although few still need further persuasion. Lack of implementation is one thing, and availability another. The structures are there, and the people have access to what they need. People on the ground may lack the motivation to work, but they are aware what to do and where to seek help. Above all, that help is available. The availability of information in South Africa is a cause for concern.

Players identified in tournaments the previous year fade into oblivion the following year. Few privileged ones, not necessarily the best, due to the geographical or social proximity, will always be in the limelight. These get to centres of excellence or the High Performance Centre. There is no class of players expected to be the ‘real Bafana Bafana’ of tomorrow. This system causes players get discovered at 23, 25 and even 27.

At 17, it is too late to be ‘discovered’. Players must be identified and grilled at 6, 8 or 10. The only way to keep track of them is to have a useful database and keep following until they are national team material and keep coaching the national philosophy, that is, how they are expected to play as national team players. The national game gets a brand and identity style of play from that early age.

In this context, as all clubs around the world know, there is an understanding of the general change of heart and lack of interest by the youth as they pass through adolescence. Some decide against pursuing football and prefer other sports, other stop sports altogether and specialise in academics to be doctors, lawyers and the like. The associations and clubs incur expenses for a lost cause in such cases, but weighing the pros and cons, they are better expecting the best in each case.

All said and done, the data information should ever be available to the public, parents and coaches for case studies, for developmental use, for training relevant personnel, sourcing of sponsorship and many other reasons. The future superstars get used to being popular and abosb the pressure of playing in the big stage early. They tend to be better hometown heroes and locals eagerly await their arrival and watch them in stadia.

As it is, many top league teams in South Africa play in empty stadia. Nobody ever knows the involved players, as they are not part of the known community. DJs are more popular than players are. Yet the country claims football is a religion.

Someone elsewhere is happy with the calamity and debacle of the African game. Few will celebrate a true African champion. The plastic smiles will hide the resentment of the coming of age of the sleeping giant. It can be confirmed that this is one sleeping giant that will never wake up, thanks to its own people.

The Science of Football

Let's roll something different. Football is always referred to as being scientific without further elaboration. This is either due to the assumption that everybody knows all aspects of the game, or lack of depth of the statements.

Basically, what and when one eats, where they sleep and how much of that sleep they get, their state of mind and emotional condition are just part of the bigger picture. The physical condition has always been the only parameter of concern to managers and coaches.

Furthermore, training and practise sessions have been progressing to an extent of making the whole process a widely studied subject with biological and medical facts.

The compilation of information and data and the utilisation thereof, is ever more important now than at any other time. The relevance of this exercise and the execution of the findings has made coaching not an everyday exercise for every Jack and Jill.

Given the statistics and data, one is expected to deduce, change and improve training methods. At this point, even the creation of drills and exercises, but again, within given guidelines as determined by own or expert research.

As an example, players usually train as a group and compared willy nilly to each other. The norm would be the urge to push everyone to the level of the others who are ‘better performing’ without looking at the reasons why certain performances are attained by these players.

To illustrate this point crudely, long distance runners will not spent time practising sprints, neither will sprinters run marathons all their training lives. The physical build, the roles athletes play, the conditions around and the need improving particular performance are some of the dictates of preparation or training.

In this digital era, thank God, there are instruments that will show the inputs and output of players as they perform. These can be utilised to record this performance from time to time and the filing of this information is so vital for reference. It becomes a barometer of performance and players will be encouraged if they see their progress on selected intervals, and when they do not perform, records will speak for themselves.

Many footballers and sports persons have died on the pitch, easily coming to mind being Cameroon’s Vivian Foe, who collapsed on the pitch during a Confederations Cup a few years back, only to die a few hours later. While incidents like this may be hard to detect at every occurrence, technology helped detect Nwankwo Kanu’s heart problem that needed delicate heart surgery. In the absence of these gadgets, Kanu may have not survived long in the game but after that successful operation, he went on to play over 10 years winning accolades. 

A different look of the science of the game, is the mathematics part; the statistics. This is a bunch of numbers that will mean nothing to the less shrewd mentors of our game today. To many, it is just for academic purposes. To the astute, every bit is a gram of gold and can mean the difference between a win and a loss.

Data can be used to map out a training session. Usually, this can be about your own team, showing the strengths and weakness at a particular time of the match, in a certain area of the pitch under certain conditions or phases of play.

Not to be forgotten is the fact that the information is almost as available and as vital as the same data of the previous and future opponents, and for the same reasons. The analysis of the stats can then be used to formulate a training session and the strategies and tactics of the matches as they come.

It must be noted that one does not have to wait for data and situations to occur to map out a training session. There should be a 5 year plan divided into seasons and then semi-annual, quarterly, monthly, weekly and daily programs. This will reflect the philosophy of the coach in general. The availability of collected data only means modification of training methods o the existing schedules.

Previous and next matches will have a lot of say on how the training should be conducted. This will include whether it is cup matches, tournaments or league matches. It will depend on the previous results, as in whether the match was won, drawn or lost and why.

While statistics for public consumption is nice to the ear, it may not be as useful to the coaches and managers, but good mentors will always find a way to utilise data as long as it is accurate. It becomes imperative that whoever collects and supplies information for technical purposes be schooled enough to know what to look for and enter this information as accurately as possible.

Good coaches will see and hear many things others cannot observe. This eye for details will be the difference between a coach and a fly-by-night. Fly by night coaches comes across disregarding planning and detailed approach to the game and playing mind-games with players. They enjoy a lot of success in the short term.

When the wheels come off the wagon, they start to press panic buttons and the tumble from glory is a shameful hard fall. Some will control the situation by using the statistics as a psychological tool, and this can be vital if done correctly.

The best scenario is to utilise the data for improving training methods and performance as well as a psychological weapon. Here, a point coming to mind is when a team for the next home fixture did not afford a shot at goal in the previous match. A coach or manager will challenge his players against this, emphasising, say, the 20 shots his team fired in their own last match.

Either way, there is more science to the game that paper or cyber space can take. In this era, good coaching is about observing, finding and utilising this to better the group you work with. Knowing your team is a science on its own. Remembering how different your team is from the last group you coached gives you a head start. Dealing with the players according to their strengths in terms of talent and attitudes will get you unsolicited mileage in a surprising way.

As a good coach, get to know well the social aspects and interest of everyone. Get to their way of life with tact and draw a line between business and social life, because you will not endear yourself well if you come across as a dictator though with some players, it helps.

Read minds and do it well first time every time.

(Only by Keutsepilemang Ndebele for www.tsendex.blogspot.com)

As football coach, champion your cause

How many times have we seen coaches shouting instructions to players, and the players respond by giving a thumbs up? Many. Ask the player after the match about what the coach was saying. They will tell you they heard nothing. If you listen to player interviews where they are asked about what the coach said at half-time, they all say the same thing. "The coach said 'go out there and enjoy yourselves' and so we did''. Those are parting word after a long lecture.

There are so many men and women aspiring to coach football teams one day and my advise is, believe not only in your dreams to be coaches but in other people's dreams to be led by yourselves. That is far from enough. Success only comes to people who have the assurance that they will be great coaches, that they can deliver.

Why does one desire to be a coach? Hopefully, it is not to be like Gavin Hunt, Keutsepilemang Ndebele or Joseph Mourinho. Having a yardstick is encouraged, but then, be your own man. Do whatever you can to curve out your football. Be the architect of your own designer football.

The desire to be a football coach becomes futile if one looks at the money and the fame that goes with it. Stress is part and parcel of the package and you cannot escape it. In doing football at a high technical level, forget EVERYTHING you have ever heard from football commentators, analysts and reporters because, entertaining as they are, they are not knowledgeable at all. Their analysis is good to the ear and for arguments, but it is fatally dangerous for your consumption as a professional.

That goes to all media people as well, like myself. They are great people and do a good job in providing information, because, normally they get access into where no Jack and Jill can. Sometimes they get access to information you need as a coach and it will be worthwhile to get them closer so you can have visuals or audio to do your job.

You must become a coach to portray a pattern of the game that is only in your head alone. Stop dreaming and fooling yourself trying to think what Sir Alex Ferguson says to his team. It is never about what anyone says. Words are the most irrelevant and behaving like a traffic cop on the touch-line making a nuisance of yourself is meant for circus. It is what one does at training that gets translated on match day on the pitch.

I say this because many people expect a coach to tell his players to do this and that, play here or there and so forth. That is the best way to express your ignorance about the game. Players are not to be told anything, they are to be coached football at the training ground. As a coach, teach them football during the week and wait for them to show the world what you taught them from training on the match day.

However, somehow the most marketable coaches are those speaking the language of the layman. They are in good books with the media and the administrators. They operate and the same level with them -  birds of a feather. That is why national teams fail. The board members interview national coaches and when the coach talks the football language, the interviewers laugh when he leaves the room, and then go on t give the job to the one who makes them nod heads in approval. We all know where that leaves the national teams.

Become that kind of coach and get good jobs with good salaries and produce nothing. You tend to have a lot of sweet football words without depth. This type of coaching also translate to a lot of talk during team talks and half time. There is too much emotion and shouting and the chairmen and owners who gate crush the dressing room enjoy the scenario because he believes you are really 'telling them'. That is a lot of dust.

This boils down to a mentality or a philosophy. You want to achieve a certain football result that only you can produce and in your own way. It becomes necessary for the club culture to share components with what you can, and want to achieve. In this regards, keep good friends around including journalists and administrators so they can source you tools you need.

The concepts and their applications as you want them must be researched, planned for by you and practised over and over until well understood. Repetition is key to any training. However, national team coaching becomes more interesting and less laborious as more tactical work is done.

Understand football rules and their limitations so you can utilise and sometimes exploit them and then work out what you want attack or defence to mean to you. Learn to define what you call success. As said before, if certain people around you start to shout your praises, watch out and do not be carried away and begin to lose focus.

Having a football strategy that you exhibit to the world successfully week in and week out makes you a good coach. It makes you feel good and very selfish football-wise, which is good. It is for this reason that qualified people step on each other's toes if placed under the same roof. Most stay together to keep their jobs because they have families to feed.

As a potential coach yourself, know what you want and map a way to achieve it. Go out and study trends and developments. Sit down and draw up practical plans and get the players you need. Gather data, pictures, videos, talk to those who know, ask questions, invite experienced mentors to your teams and to watch your sessions and matches.

Consultation does not mean copying and pasting other people's ideas. The point is to polish your own. It means you want to see how your football can be similar or different, better. It is about trying new things and maybe remodelling the status quo. You need useful information that may make your football more relevant or useless. It helps keep your game at your finger-tips and strive to be better than yourself.

You will remember that when I formed KFA, most of the best players were registered with other teams and the particular group I eventually worked with were said to be rebels and thugs. Using reverse psychology, this is the tool I used to make KFA fearsome. It was my straight talk with the players, because I told them in their faces that I heard they were criminals and unruly.

While they were concerned to start with, I told them that is exactly why they will not be beaten in football. The thuggery energy was suddenly converted to a spirited weapon that detonated at each kick-off. We went on a rampage and thrilling fans and referees in 2nd Division. We refused a few penalties offered for free and quite a lot of favours. Actually, the only two losses from our 40 games came when entertained referees tried to help us.

Have a very strong belief in your own football. Read the game well, see the wrongs in general terms, and see the good. Give solutions to the problems your players have. Sometimes it can be done on the spot, but usually, major tactical problems are to be noted and trained upon during the week.

This actually makes your starting point. That you must have players play football and give them solutions to the problems they face. You can not start giving the solutions to the problems they do not have, and may never have.

I have seen revered coaches who find teams playing football and then they try to give half-time pep talk. You can only give advise and corrections to students you have taught. Otherwise, just let them play and enjoy. The essence of coaching gets drowned in the emotions and theories sometimes. Under all circumstances, know the parameters under which you are operating and adjust accordingly.

As a coach, you must always remember that, you do not play Arsene Wenger or Jose Mourinho's football. You play your very own football. Players and clubs play your own football. Get the data and statistics you need, sit and plan. Go to the field and follow your plan to the letter. Do not create or accept short cuts. Make very simple and practical exercises in areas that resemble the game situation. It is either you will go along the trends or against the grain.

Be involved and be part of the players and make fun. Let the whole thing be enjoyable. Come match day, all you did during the week becomes your team talk. That goes for half-time pep-talk in the dressing room. You do not go in there and shout out things that players are not aware of. Calm down, and then go over the game plan, what is going right and what is going wrong. In either case, you state why you are right and why things are going wrong. You will need statistics to prove your points. Ask questions from players about where they are finding difficulty and how they think they can solve the problems. All within the scope of your work with them.

In my case, I become calmest when I am losing and the situation is bad, but somehow players will tell that the boss is mad. They will try to make things happen for you. It becomes a very hard noisy push when the win is big (2-0 and up) and could have been bigger. You must be tactful to know your players. Some people you do not take it lightly the use of a loud voice or public address while others will only hear and act if facing open ridicule.

Either way, they are playing your football.  While fans may be clapping and cheering for you and your team, and commentators are revving and screaming your praises, remember someone may be sitting somewhere in a corner laughing at how much of a moron and a clown you are. It is unfortunate they never really get time to sit down and ask you what exactly you were trying to do.

In most cases, 5 to 10 minutes will sell out your tactics and depending, one coach may be changing their tactics to counter yours, or turning the screw to stamp their authority. Depending on your ability and strength of mind, you may be one coach or the other.