SCRUTATOR
ONCE upon a time, football authorities in a beautiful kingdom had suffered enough ignominy in the beautiful game on the international arena that they decided to come up with what turned out to be a novel idea.
In fact, they had long ceased to see the beauty of the game that was always leaving them with tears streaming down their cheeks.
“Our boys are always losing. Why should we force them to do what they clearly have failed over the years?” one of the bosses asked.
“I have an idea,” his colleague retorted with the grin of a kindergarten child who has been promised lollipop if he gets his name right.
“Let’s hire a foreign coach!”
“But we have recently fired another one?”
“No, this time round we want to see for real if it’s the coaches who are failing us so we ask the new guy not to win!”
So Zavisa Milosavljevic arrived with specific instructions to lose games.
Likuena play Ghana, boom-boom our boys are chastised.
Libya, the Crocodiles are left biting the dust.
Gabon, Likuena are given a football lesson.
By the way I had not followed football news since my favourite team, Sekamaneng Young Stars, were dispatched back to lower division football last season.
So when I first saw the headline, “Likuena coach fired”, I said to myself here goes another joke from the LEFA Circus.
Scrutator was, for the first time in ages, unsure how to react when she read the news that LEFA had decided to show Milosavljevic the door.
At first, before I knew the history of the Likuena coach’s appointment, I was among the many people who were shocked last year when the Serb gaffer’s job description was made public.
One senior official at the Lesotho Embarrassing Football Association said Milosavljevic was not in Lesotho to take our boys to their maiden appearance at either the African Nations Cup or World Cup.
Only that I quickly learnt he was a family man otherwise I would have peddled my CV to enjoy those thousands he was earning — for free.
We had all forgotten what Milosavljevic was expected not to achieve by his bosses when Likuena started getting some encouraging results.
Encouraging to all those who know football is about winning.
Probably being from the latter world, Milosavljevic slowly forgot he had been employed to lose.
Likuena started earning draws.
We are getting there, the school that believes the beauty of football is in winning started saying.
And little did Milosavljevic know his bosses were watching him closely.
By the way, they had not really forgiven him for trying to take harsh action against delinquent players who sneaked out of camp to go on a boozing binge.
Then Likuena held Zimbabwe to a 1-1 draw in Bulawayo.
That was, as they say, the straw that broke the camel’s back.
Milosavljevic was fired!
Scrutator wishes this story, about a coach who was fired for trying to work, was just entirely imaginary!
Milosavljevic will never win his case in any court because he breached his contract when he tried to win games.
Was Scrutator the only one to notice the conspicuous absence of some editors or their representatives from what the local media said was an editors’ forum?
I presume the organisers have every right to choose who should or not attend their meetings.
So they must have exercised that right when they excluded some editors from this week’s forum.
What I found curious, though, was that almost every other media house in the country was represented from Pravda to newsletters.
Except, you guessed right, your favourite.
I’ve been wondering if it’s my writings that have triggered the exclusion of my bosses.
Or maybe the new kid on the block has battered competition so bad that no one wants the paper in races anymore.
What is it, what is it?
If you have the answer, do not hesitate to share it with others.
What I know though is that this paper has been amazing since it hit the streets last year.
I know some of you might say there goes Scrutator, singing for her supper.
But everyone else has said it — including those who have admitted it in their hearts but won’t say it openly because of obvious reasons.
A couple of media houses have not hidden their admiration of this paper’s pioneering traits though.
I will not talk about media owners suddenly realising they were paying their journalists pittances.
Yes, there was a time when scribes were so underpaid that it hurt.
Since this paper erected poster boards all over town, its rivals have resisted the temptation to be silent admirers.
So the other one copied and the other one has recently followed suit.
Scrutator wonders if it’s the Lesotho Times that’s been around for a decade.
Anyway, as they say, imitation is the greatest form of flattery — only to a certain extent of course.
The Chinese have proven over the years that those who copy always don’t cope.
That’s why we’ve been seeing some fongkong kind of posters.
If last week’s wasn’t fongkong stuff, then it was yet another clever invention from our media: “Ugandians in 200K fraud”.
Ugandians?
When we were reciting from the atlas during primary school I thought people from Uganda were called Ugandans.
Well, isn’t it others also call Ghanaians Ghananians?
Think of Lesothonians or Botswanians or Zambiains!
Indeed copycats must pay attention.
But there is a danger in copying things you don’t understand.
I am reminded of my Standard 3 classmate, Thabo, who was so dull that he used to copy even the name and candidate number of his neighbour in the examination room.