Which job would you rather do? Save Portsmouth from relegation in the middle of a particularly bleak winter at Fratton Park? Or take on Senegal, Nigeria and Ghana in the African Cup of Nations?
My answer? Neither.
But Benjamin Mwaruwari appears ready to take on two of the toughest assignments in football following his £4,1-million move from France.
After joining a long line of distinguished Zimbabweans in the English top flight — actually, if anyone can add to former Liverpool goalkeeper Bruce Grobbelaar and Coventry City winger Peter Ndlovu, I’d be happy to hear from them at [email protected] — the 27-year-old now known as Benjani endured a tough baptism on Saturday.
He hardly got a pass off his rubber-legged co-striker Lomano Trezor Lua Lua (seen as a promising goal-getter in his days alongside Alan Shearer at Newcastle). Then Benjani was joined up front by newly arrived Polish-Nigerian Emmanuel Olisadebe, who really can play a bit. But the combined talents of all three African-born strikers weren’t enough to soil the clean sheet presented by Everton, who took a crucial three points back up the M1.
Quite why Mwaruwari would want to leave Auxerre, currently third in the French league, for Harry Redknapp’s ailing Pompey no one really knows.
The answer probably lies in the arrival at Portsmouth of one Alexandre ”Sasha” Gaydamak. We’ve already had a couple of dual-nationality tags. Try these. Sasha is the French-Israeli son of Russian-Canadian-Israeli-French-Angolan millionaire Arcadi, who enjoyed a bit of jolly arms and oil dealing around Angola in the early 1990s. Shrugging off this controversy to join old Serbian-Yugoslavian-American chairperson Milan Madaric at the Pompey helm, Sasha has just sunk his first £12-million into the bottomless pit called Portsmouth FC.
Protracted whingeing from coach Redknapp finally resulted in a January spending spree designed to save a club with dreadful facilities who are currently languishing five points behind Middlesbrough and Premiership safety. Along with Mwaruwari and Olisadebe, Pompey have also spent £7-million on Spurs trio Noe Pamarot, Pedro Mendes and Sean Davis.
Big deal. They still look like relegation fodder to me. Redknapp spent Christmas complaining that too many of his players are rubbish and can’t speak English. This from a man who left the club for hated rivals Southampton, got them relegated, then returned amid a great fanfare of raspberries.
Did anyone tell Benjani about all this? He scored a useful 19 goals in his 72 appearances as Djibril Cissé’s replacement at Auxerre after his 2002 switch from Swiss club Grasshoppers. He cut his teeth in Johannesburg with Jomo Cosmos, where he scored for fun and was known as ”The Gravedigger”. He was South Africa’s player of the year in 2001 and now earns enough to pay for Zimbabwe’s international tours.
Not bad for the Harare-born lad who started his career at a club known, bizarrely, as Lulu Rovers.
The problem in France wasn’t the grouchy Auxerre coach Guy Roux, France’s answer to dear old Brian Clough. It was former Spurs manager Jacques Santini’s arrival that led to upsets. Like so many White Hart Lane fans, Mwaruwari didn’t quite see eye to eye with Santini. Wigan and Marseille were both interested, but Mwaruwari chose Portsmouth. Quite why, remains to be seen.
Like so many other Africans in the Premiership, Mwaruwari now faces what could be a three-week break from his new club to rejoin Zimbabwe’s Warriors in Egypt for the African Cup of Nations.
He said: ”I left our training camp because the Zimbabwe manager, Charles Mhlauri, agreed to Portsmouth’s request that I play for them in the league match against Everton.”
With 27 caps to his name, he eased fears of putting club before country by confirming: ”I have spoken to my new manager [Redknapp] about the situation and he has no problems with me playing at the Nations Cup. I look forward to representing my country and wish to make it absolutely clear that I will play in every game at the tournament. We are going there to fight and give our best, we are not just going to roll over.”
Mwaruwari, arrested last June at the Plumtree border post — he was fined Z$25 000 (about 3p) for allegedly slapping a female customs officer — scored for Zimbabwe in their final friendly against Auxerre, on a tour he financed personally, given the parlous state of his country’s finances.
But quite how he hopes to progress in the African Nations Cup is another matter.
Zimbabwe are in the nastiest pool, Group D (for death, presumably), with Ghana, Nigeria and Senegal. They open their campaign against heavily fancied Senegal on January 23 in Port Said, followed by a match-up with Nigeria’s Super Eagles (who beat them 5-1 and 3-0 in qualifying) at the same ground four days later.
Their final group match — and in all likelihood their final match at Afcon 2006 — is against Ghana in Ismalia on January 31.
Mwaruwari isn’t alone in his Premiership absence. At Pompey alone, Lua Lua is off to join the Democratic Republic of Congo with Collins Mbesuma leading the Zambian strikers.
From all over the Premiership and beyond (Jean-Paul Kamudimba of the Congo plays for Grimsby, and that really is beyond), the players are off for what British managers view as a holiday. Typically, Afcon means nothing to them, while Euro 2008 will presumably bring the world to a grinding halt.
Quite how Jose Mourinho will view the absence of Didier Drogba (Côte d’Ivoire) and Geremi (Cameroon) is hard to say. Sadly, Michael Essien, such a vital part of Ghana’s set-up, not to mention Chelsea’s rip-roaring start to the season, is out with the ankle injured by West Ham’s Nigel Reo-Coker’s awful tackle on January 2. Strange that, given that Essien is apparently due to start training again this week.
So Roman Abramovich will be able to save some pennies on fuel for the personal jet he offered to lay on for Essien to ferry the midfielder between Egypt and England.
Still, I’m sure Chelsea, with all their expensive medical back-up, are spot on with their prognosis. The poor lad won’t be able to play for the next month, surely? Sadly, in Britain, Ghana’s needs aren’t quite as important as Fifa might think.
The absence of 28 players probably won’t have a profound affect on football in Britain. But more than a few managers will be watching coverage from Egypt while dozens of scouts slip in and out of the pyramids. They don’t care about the Nations Cup, but they know where the talent comes from.