By Agencies
MARIO Marinica will go down as the coach whose so-called scientific approach failed the test during the five months he spent in charge of the Warriors.
The Romanian stepped down from his role as Warriors coach on Monday, in what was a surprise development. Mario was seen taking notes, as he watched the Castle Lager Premiership match between Dynamos and ZPC Kariba at Rufaro on Sunday, which ended in a goalless draw.
A few hours later, he was GONE.
ZIFA said in their statement that Mario resigned for “personal reasons.” But a number of questions are being asked, and a number of theories are being thrown around, in the wake of this divorce.
Mario signed a Non-Disclosure Agreement, which means he will not be able to shed a lot of light about what led him to either quit or be forced out, as some are already speculating.
But, how will Zimbabwe remember this Romanian coach?
The fact that he spent only five months in charge of the Warriors, and guided them in only three competitive games — two defeats and a draw — means that it’s difficult to really judge Mario.
His only draw came against Angola, a game which some analysts feel the Warriors should have won, if Mario had thrown his best player, Tawanda Maswanhise, into the starting XI at the AFCON finals.
Instead, he kept him on the bench because, in his own words, his science told him that.
When it comes to the hard science of winning — the objective statistics tell us that he is not a coach who took Zimbabwe to the Promised Land, when measured against the metrics of winning things and the ultimate prize of qualifying for the World Cup.
Very few will mourn his resignation.
He joins a long list of failures in history’s dustbin, which has been especially unkind to foreign experiments. History will judge him harshly, especially for the way he treated Maswanhise — who has had a stellar season in Scotland — with “fire in the belly” performances as if to prove a point that the coach was wrong to ignore him in the Warriors’ first two matches at the AFCON finals.
His ill-treatment of Marshall Munetsi is probably what eventually devoured him.
He might have believed in his flawed science but he should have known that there are many versions of sciences which need to be considered when running an institution like the office of Warriors coach.
There is social science — the systematic study of human behaviour, interactions, and societies, focusing on how people behave, organise, and influence the world. He poorly applied his methodology and failed dismally to improve the social challenges of the Warriors dressing room.
Mario will be remembered as the coach who superintended the most fractious Warriors dressing room in which backstabbing and gossiping became “scientifically proven.”
There is also political science, which studies the theory and practice of government, politics, and power distribution.
Mario failed all these sciences.
He also failed when it comes to integrated science. As Zimbabwe wakes up from the Mario era, or is it error, and begin to rebuild a post-Mario dispensation, it is crucial that mistakes of the past — especially this immediate past — are not repeated.
A fractious Warriors squad is recipe for more national team failures.
Efforts must be put in place to reunite the players, regardless of their backgrounds, for the benefit of the badge. The appointment of Kaitano Tembo, even though on a caretaker basis, is a step in the right direction. He is a man with the right pedigree as a coach and the institutional memory of the national game. Mario divided the Warriors, split them into camps, and dragged the team backwards.
This was an experiment which should have been avoided from the word go
