You can never go wrong with a polished diamond

HIS name sounded as Zimbabwean as they come, yet a lot of us were only getting to know about him for the first time as told by South African media.

In those days, when South Africa’s football Press corps preferred his middle name, he was known as Nyasha Munetsi.

The reason he was an unknown quantity back home was that when Munetsi left to play football in South Africa, he was only 19, fresh out of a Harare academy, never having kicked a ball in Zimbabwe’s top-flight competition, the Premier Soccer League (PSL).

So when news broke out of South Africa that Soweto giants Orlando Pirates had signed a very highly-rated young Zimbabwean central midfielder called Nyasha Munetsi from FC Cape Town, to initially loan him out to Baroka, football fans across the Limpopo who did not follow the South African second-tier league were wondering just who this hyped chap was.

If Marshall Munetsi (as he is known now) moves from French side Reims to English Premiership club Brighton & Hove Albion, as has been widely reported this week, he will become the third current Zimbabwe international to play in the world’s best football league. Two born in Zimbabwe, and the other in England.

And if you take a closer look, you will observe that they all perfected their art elsewhere and not in Zimbabwe, in environments where scientific methods of coaching football have been embraced and refined to squeeze every ounce of ability out of talented footballers.

The two years that Munetsi spent with Pirates, one of the biggest clubs in Africa and one of the most professional, bolstered what the Zimbabwean had learnt earlier in Cape Town and at Baroka.

Reims liked what they saw and in 2019 off Munetsi was to French Ligue 1 football.

Munetsi’s story resonates with Aston Villa midfielder Marvelous Nakamba’s.

Initially groomed in the youth structures of Zimbabwean football giants Highlanders, it was later at Bantu Rovers, which has a strong academy system, that Nakamba got his first breakthrough under the guidance of club owner and shrewd talent scout Methembe Ndlovu.

At 18, Nakamba was recruited for the development side of French side Nancy and in 2014 featured for their senior side, making two appearances in Ligue 1.

Dutch outfit Vitesse and Belgian side Club Brugge were the next European suitors, where the diamond was further polished, and polished shinier that it glimmered in the direction of England, where Aston Villa could not resist the sparkle.

I can also take you back to the retired talismanic pair of Knowledge Musona and Khama Billiat, whose rough edges were also smoothened after they left Zimbabwe as teenagers.

You could argue a case for Zimbabwe’s PSL, that Lyon forward Tino Kadewere did feature in our league before he made the grade in Europe. But even he left as a teenager, with just a handful of appearances for Harare City. What Tino had learnt in junior football here, under the hard-working and unsung heroes of Zimbabwean football at the academies, had equipped him well enough for the European market.

On the contrary, we have seen established players from our league being signed by clubs outside Zimbabwe, even in South Africa, and failing to elevate their status once they leave these parts.

For me, there is a simple conclusion to make: there is something right that Zimbabwe’s academies are doing, but then something terribly wrong with the PSL and how players are coached in the clubs.

The solution is perhaps to get our best young talent out of the country as early as possible.

But they all cannot go, they all will not go.

Some of the diamonds therefore must be polished right here in Zimbabwe and this can only be possible through synergising all football interests and activities in this country.

Because right now it is not the case. Maybe the forced international football sabbatical can make people find each other for the greater good.