Why should we bother?

If you have read this column in recent weeks, you will have known that last Saturday’s elimination of the Flames from the Africa Cup of Nations did not come to me as a surprise. I never saw our team overturning the first leg 2-0 defeat in Accra against a team of Ghana’s calibre. My best hope was for a face-saving win that would see us bow out with a bit of honour. As it happened, even that was beyond us.

Now, I agree with national coach Kinnah Phiri that there is no disgrace in losing to the Black Stars given the obvious gulf in class between the two sides. But this gap did not suddenly emerge during or after the game. It was one we all knew about and some of us actually referred to it prior to kick off. The coach and his charges, however, made everyone believe the difference would not show on the pitch.

I am not so naive as to be oblivious of the fact that it is normal for a coach to rally his troops before a game to make them believe they can deliver and I have said before that in a one-off match any team can beat any other side. That is why I was hoping we would come up with a strategy to nullify their strengths and somehow shock them. We were never going to do that by going behind so early.

As would be expected, the result did not please many fans and those in Lilongwe made their views known by demanding Kinnah’s head. In response to that, his employers and bosses have appealed for patience. Someone even went as far as suggesting that he is all we have. That did not sound like an endorsement of the coach’s credentials but a sound byte of resignation and helplessness.

In a way, I agree with this sentiment. The former Bata Bullets and Flames striker has done better than most coaches that came before him if you only consider that he led us to the 2010 Africa Cup of Nations. Forget the manner of qualifying. What we should be asking ourselves is whether that is enough and we should settle for that. From the statement above, I sense that people agree it is not enough but see no alternative.

What you get from all this is that Malawians should be used to mediocrity because that is all we can afford. We do not have better coaches in the country nor the resources to import any. We cannot get any more honest with ourselves than that. The sad thing with that situation is that the only winners will be the coach who will have a job and everyone else who will be part of the global tourism that will have replaced the will to compete.

For the rest of us, it will be one heartache after another and where a match is taking place at home, it will be a double dosage of misery as we will have parted with a huge chuck of our hard-earned money to go through that suffering. It is amazing how the mighty have fallen. This is a team, as Kinnah very well knows, that could wreak havoc on the continent. We remain with the tales to tell our children who will pass them on.

Wait a minute, we still have the World Cup in Brazil to qualify for. Yes, the same one Kinnah told us he was not bothered about. Who are we then to bother?