Legends match: Thumbs up to Yogi inclusion

24 Nov, 2017 - 00:11 0 Views
Legends match: Thumbs up to Yogi inclusion

The ManicaPost

ESTEEMED followers of the game of football, thank you for finding time for interaction. So the Zimbabwe Warriors legends versus Barcelona legends match came and went, but the talking points it generated still reverberate to this day.

Naturally, the discussion that the exhibition match – played at the National Sports recently – ignited revolved around the inclusion and/or omission of some players for the Warriors squad. Put simply, the ‘eligibility’ of some of those legends that turned out for Zimbabwe was questioned, as was the appearance of guest player Walter Magaya of Prophetic Healing and Deliverance ministries.

Having, as did most followers of the game, chewed on that in the intervening period between match-day and publication of this piece, that, however, is not what Friday Football Echoes will digest in this installment. In fact, Yours Truly’s two cents on that issue may never be a subject in this space.

That matter that interested and excited us the most, nonetheless, was the inclusion of David “Yogi” Mandigora as one of the two assistants, together with Rahman Gumbo, to Sunday Chidzambwa for that game.

This is just the right tonic Yogi needed to cheer up his spirits as he recovers from a traumatic experience of having his right leg amputated in September. That experience in that exhibition match will help him feel a lot better during his rehabilitation period. That gesture of co-opting him – as was that of raising funds through a match in England and handing over the proceeds to him, by Zimbabwean former footballers based in United Kingdom – gives the 1980 Soccer Star of the year the recognition he deserves. This was also particularly important because it reminds and shows the ex-Dynamos player and gaffer that he is still accepted and appreciated among his peers and also in the game that gave him a name despite his condition.

Watching the championship-winning coach, who also took the Glamour Boys to the semi-finals of the CAF Champions League, pacing from the technical area to the touchline on leg crutches for his input into the match with instructions to the veterans who were doing duty on the park was as heart-warming a spectacle as it was dignifying. For a man who described football as his life and is certainly looking forward to definitely returning to the game at some point, as he boldly declared “I have a lot to offer to Zimbabwean football” to The Sunday Mail last month, that involvement with the Warriors legends on Sunday should in the long run help him back onto the path that shall see his football journey continuing.

Disability is certainly not inability and Yogi showed us that he still has an active role to play and something to offer, even on the administration side of the game; and can lend a hand to the development of our football.

And still in the mood of legends, we cite the words of celebrated retired Italian footballer Andrea Pirlo that “football is played with the head. Your feet are just the tools”; which resonate with loads of sense so much so that Mandigora can still remain useful to our local game in some capacity as we tap into his wealth of experience.

At Friday Football Echoes, we doff our hat to the organisers of the Warriors-Barcelona legends match for their inclusion of Yogi.

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