MARIO’S TREATMENT OF MUNETSI IS PROBABLY THE CLOSEST THING TO WITCHCRAFT IN FOOTBALL

The Paris FC midfielder was first sidelined by Mario from the AFCON finals in Morocco, with the coach saying he didn’t want to take a huge gamble by bringing in an “injured” player. This was despite Munetsi insisting that he was fit enough to play for his country and saying he felt, at the age of 29, this was the last chance for him to play at the tournament while still in his prime. He hinted that his English Premiership side Wolves were not fielding him because they didn’t want to take a chance given they were looking at moving him to another club during the European winter transfer season, which opens in January.

And, true to his words, Wolves loaned him out to French top-flight side FC Paris, where he could seal a permanent move, just after the window opened. Munetsi has flourished at FC Paris where he has scored in his last three matches. The midfielder and his Warriors counterpart, Tawanda Maswanhise, are the best performing Zimbabwean footballers right now.

Ironically, Maswanhise struggled to earn the faith of Mario and was kept on the bench in the Warriors’ first two matches at the AFCON finals before being thrown into the fray in the final match against Bafana Bafana. He showed Mario how his belief in his flawed science had misled him as he produced a man-of-the-match performance against Bafana Bafana in the Warriors’ 2-3 defeat. In just 90 minutes, he also convinced the CAF experts that he was one of the THREE most promising African footballers.

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Maswanhise, who has scored 21 goals for his Scottish club Motherwell, has been drafted into the squad for the Botswana trip. Mario did not explain the decision to leave out Munetsi and neither did ZIFA provide an explanation as to why one of the two best performing Warriors is not part of the squad. While other coaches release their national team squads at media conferences, where they get a chance to defend their decisions and explain why they would have picked or omitted certain players, Mario prefers to just post his squad on the ZIFA website.

This means that journalists do not get the chance to get an explanation from the coach as to why certain players are missing. “It’s time for Marshall Munetsi to consider retirement from the national team,” he posted.

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