Forged in hardship, Mighty Warriors take on Canada at Rio Games

By Christie Blatchford | National Post |

About a month ago, Canadian women’s head coach John Herdman showed his soccer players a story about their counterparts in Zimbabwe, the impoverished African country headed by the cruel strongman Robert Mugabe.

Herdman had been monitoring the media about the team for a while, and wanted the Canadians to understand what the Zimbabwean women had faced on the road to Rio — no funding; the need to have a full-time job; the forfeited games, big games, because there was no money to travel; even injured players paying $100 for an MRI.

Really, Herdman wanted the Canadians to get in a visceral way how lucky they are, if only via the happy accident of birth.

He wanted them to have “a deep sense of respect for (their) opponents,” as he said Friday. “That’s adversity, and that makes people strong.”

The Mighty Warriors — every national football team in Zimbabwe is known as the Warriors, but with no way to feminize the name, the players went with “Mighty” — are the first soccer team of either gender from “Zim”, as natives call their country, to qualify for the Olympics.

They very nearly didn’t.

They had to pass on a third-round Olympic qualifying match against Ivory Coast because the soccer federation had no money to send them. Ivory Coast was duly awarded three points, but when the return match was scheduled in Zim, Ivory Coast also ran out of dough and couldn’t go.

The game was re-scheduled a third time, but this time Ivory Coast withdrew and Zimbabwe got a spot in the final round, where they won on the away-goals system against Cameroon.

As well, virtually the entire Zim coaching staff was abruptly fired in September last year, and new head coach Shadreck Mlauzi, a high school phys ed teacher by profession, brought in.

He and team captain Felistas Muzongondi made an appearance at the mandatory day-before press conference at Corinthians Arena.

The Warriors drew powerhouse Germany in their opening match, and were pounded 6-1, but they stole the affections of the crowd, who chanted “Zim-bab-we!” throughout. “We shall forever be indebted to the Brazilian people for that,” Mlauzi said in his soft voice and with his impeccable manners. “We hope for the same show of support tomorrow.”

While most of the players work full-time for the military, police or correctional service and play for their teams – the Blue Swallows Queens (the air force), the Black Rhinos (the army) and the Flaming Lily Queens (the correctional service) – Muzongondi works as a clerk for a sugar manufacturer.

“I’m not a footballer always,” she said. “I give myself time for the job and training.” Even Mlauzi, who said “at the end of the day I’m being paid, yes”, isn’t fully on contract with the Zim association.

Newspapers back home noted that a wealthy local businessman, a self-appointed benefactor for the game, recently gave Mlauzi a car – and reported that while he was delirious about the gesture, he didn’t have a driver’s licence.

As he said, “Zimbabwe football at the moment is an emerging (game), and women’s football is in its infancy. Everyone has jobs as full-time professionals, so we are an amateur group of players I would say.”

Zim is rated 93rd in the world, Canada 10th, but as Herdman said, “It’s an Olympics, we know pretty well things can (go) out of control … big upsets can happen … Zimbabwe can make history for their country, and that will drive them.”

For all the genius of the sports scientists who back up the Canadians and most wealthy Western nations, figuring out when 34-year-old legs may give up and 16-year-old ones may stumble, “You still gotta go with instinct,” Herdman said. “Sometimes, who wants it more wins.”

He really believes even in 2016 that still happens, and he said he sometimes feels that he’s trapped in the science of modern sport. “You have to trust the art of coaching … Will before skill, and you know those players who can find it for you.”

Wherever Canadians get to the podium, he said, it’s usually when “will outdoes talent.”

But these Canadians face a team forged in hardship, who enjoy no luxuries and few of the advantages they have, but who are a proud group — and as Mlauzi said, “an ambitious group.”

Nothing may speak to that better than some of their first names, the faith-grounded and aspirational names their optimistic parents gave them — there’s Emmaculate, Talent and Rejoice.

The Mighty Warriors, Mlauzi said, didn’t even enjoy the applause at home they deserved for their remarkable qualifying run; they went mostly uncelebrated.

“The support wasn’t really as great as we would expect,” he said, and then, with a lyrical Zimbabwean nod to a higher power, he added,

“But other than that, we thank the Almighty that we are here.

“We are the manifestation of God’s grace, really.”