What Next After Bonetti’s Dismissal?

By Godfrey Chikumbi

Whoever thought Dario  Bonetti was a good coach for Zambia must have been a good joker. I hasten to put it on record that the Italian gaffer is the worst Zambia has ever had.

When Bonetti came to take up the Chipolopolo assignment in 2010 after having been headhunted by the former head of state Rupiah Banda, the Italian trainer’s CV never won many people’s hearts.

Most soccer fans who still were yearning for more of Herve Renard’s French wizardry having guided the Chipolopolo to the quarter-finals of the 2010 Angola AFCON.  Many thought the Frenchman was better than Bonetti.

Following Renard’s departure to Angola for greener pastures against many people’s wishes including the Republican President Banda at the time, the Football  Association Of Zambia (FAZ) advertised the job. It was widely reported in the media that a good number of high profile coaches from across the world answered the call.

There were reports that among those that applied for the job was a Brazilian duo. Many soccer fans itched to see a Brazilian coach Zambia.

Some newspapers and radio stations reported that FAZ president Kalusha Bwalya was courting Gavin Hunt , current coach at Supersport United , a South African club. Before these rumours even gathered momentum, Bonetti was putting pen to paper for a two – year contract courtesy of the then President of the republic of Zambia.

First of all; one does not need to sweat to mention that Bonetti was an imposition on FAZ by former republican President and FAZ patron Banda .  Rupiah himself mentioned this in one of his interviews to Pay TV channel   Supersport mid this year.

In as much as we appreciate the former president’s effort to improve Zambian football, imposing a coach with no pedigree on FAZ was a mistake. I don’t think Bonetti deserved to coach the senior national team with the kind of CV he came with. The documents he had qualified him to comfortably train a lower ranked South African club.

It was therefore an insult to employ  Bonetti  as manager for a side that was beyond his capacity.  From the scanty evidence I labored to research and gather on the Italian, giving him a task of that magnitude overwhelmed him.

There is nothing to write home about concerning Bonetti’s performance where he came from  apart from his unsuccessful and short stints in Romania ( not a football power house) and some lower tier clubs. This is a man you give a huge task of taking over a successful national team.  Don’t argue; we had just made it to the last eight at the2010 Angola AFCON. We deserve a successful tag.

There was a  serious uproar in the nation in opposition to the Italian gaffer’s appointment. Muvi TV and zambianfootball.net football analyst and pundit Musonda  Chibulu almost plunged himself into problems for strongly protesting  the Bonetti deal. In one of his older blogs on this site, Ba Muzo investigatively showed us how mediocre the new signee was, by judging his CV. Obviously, having read Musonda’s blog, at a press conference the former president fumed and scolded those he said were politicking the Bonetti deal. I feared for my elder brother’s safety.

Despite all what was dug out and revealed  about the Bonetti deal, FAZ willingly handed him the lucrative deal. This happened against many people’s wishes. Some FAZ  insiders I was chatting with expressed disappointment at the former patron’s behavior. Now, the question is, how many were going to protest if a good coach was imposed on FAZ? Of course, no one.

Bonetti was not only bad on the touchline but also off the touchline. He was one who was loose- tongued. Bonetti’s behavior towards his Zambia assistants was very bad. Look at the way he treated Lucky Msiska and he got away with it? We all watched helplessly and defenselessly.

Bonetti also took his insolence and arrogance to George Kasengele, the chief executive officer of FAZ. Some sources in football house told me that Bonetti was disrespecting everybody at FAZ except Kalusha Bwalya, probably  because he was a better player than him during his heydays.

I cannot leave out Bonetti’s  ‘glorious’ coming to Zambia. The man came with four bedroom (or is it  backroom) assistants from Italy all in a way of suffocating FAZ. We were told that whoever was assigned to help him, Janza and Msiska, were both reduced to’ chola boys’  in preference to his Italian lieutenants.

He was a mobile coach who always gallivanted foreign lands in the name of monitering our players plying their trade in various countries. This happened at the expense of watching a very active FAZ super league to spot talent. What was difficult about relying on DVD recent information on particular professional player?  No body even FAZ bothered to question this behaviour.

Bonetti thought Zambians could be taken for a ride. You ask him why he was behaving the way he is, he answers,  he is using new  technology which he wanted us not to know about.

Enough of evaluating Bonett’s stay in Zambia. Now that his tricks, mediocrity and incompetence have caught up with him, embattled  Bonetti is now history and nothing to remember him for. Qualifying to the Africa cup is a common feature for Zambia and that cannot make him win kudos and accolades from soccer fans. How does the future of Zambian football look like? This is a question being asked by millions of Zambian football lovers.

FAZ general secretary, George Kasengele has told this nation that the association led by Great Kalu is working round the clock in ensuring that the new Chipolopolo coach is appointed to lead the technical bench to the 2012 Equatorial Guinea/Gabon AFCON. I have always trusted Kalusha Bwalya and his men and women at Football house to do a good job.

Many people are keeping their fingers crossed on the appointment of a new Chipolopolo gaffer. The point is, people will never accept to march from mediocrity to mediocrity and incompetence  to incompetence. If Bonetti who is an expartriate coach can be dropped? Who then expects FAZ to name a local coach to take charge?

FAZ should not  think about appointing a local coach. I know many coaches in this country will react angrily to this argument. It may be an insult to our local coaches  but the truth stands. Many Zambian hearts still yearn for another expatriate coach for basically one important reason, Zambian football  at the moment cannot offer a local coach capable of handling the national team. They are still developing.

It is not only in Zambia where our own sons of the soil are failing to tick. As the saying goes; a prophet is never respected in his place of birth so is the scenario in the Zambian game at the moment. Nigeria are quizzing Samson Siassa why they have not qualified when they have always qualified. A lot of many other Nigerians are bitter with Siassa. They have attributed his failure to being a local coach. Pitso Mosimane in our sister country South Africa is also a punching bag.

One wonders why England is still holding on to Italy’s Fabio Cappello. A research recently conducted in England showed that English players were fond of disrespecting local coaches. The research showed that England’s poor performance during the pre- Cappello’s reign was because local coaches failed to instill discipline in the players. Most players feared that local coaches were not good for them.

The situation is the same here. It is an indisputable fact that there are coaches in Zambia who are more qualified than Bonetti. I don’t want to mention names here. Zambians easily forget. What made Zambia Under 23 bow out of the London 2012 Olympics or worse still, fail to participate at the All-Africa Games? The answer to all this questions will be Msiska.

If the reason to sack Bonetti is to replace him with a local coach, then bring Bonetti back. Replacing Bonetti with a local coach is the worst mistake that can be made. Zambians saw what Chipolopolo is capable of doing at the 2010 AFCON in Angola with a good coach. We went up to the quarterfinals.  This time around our hopes are high. We need to go past the quarterfinals.

A local coach is not an option for Zambia as doing so will only be an experiment. The best great Kalu should do is to advertise the job. Let coaches across the world apply to be offered. There are  many good coaches beyond the borders of this nation who wish to coach Zambia. Any coach will be interested in coaching the chipolopolo, the team  that has qualified to the AFCON. The AFCON is  Africa’s biggest soccer showpiece and so any  trainer would itch to be taken on for the sake of exposure no matter how highly rated they are.

We know  that our local coaches command little or no respect amongst  our foreign based players. This is very true especially with what happened in Chile during the build up to the 2010 Africa cup;  an insider revealed that the locally based coach who stood in for Herve Renard  shivered upon seeing the likes of Jacob Mulenga being part of his trainees. He out of fear asked a delegation leader to address the players. This is not a fabrication of events, it happened. Are these the kind of people that can guide the team to the AFCON finals?

My humble appeal  to FAZ president and his team is for them to treat this as a matter of urgency. Give us a better coach than Dario Bonetti. of course not a local coach. Let us learn from our past mistakes and make amends. Bye Bonetti and go well with your new technology.

Posted by Admin on October 15, 2011. Filed under SPORTS. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry