Why local players fail professional tests

Today, everyone the world over admires professional footballers. This is the highest level any footballer can attain. Football without professional ranks is like having primary education success with out secondary or University education. After a series of trials to earn a professional deal, midfielder Haruna Niyonzima is back after yet another failed attempt with Ligue 1 side FC Nantes. Like Haruna, many others have tried their luck in Europe but have failed. Many players from the East and central African countries suffer setbacks when it comes to joining highly paid football careers. Recently, Haruna, Jean-Baptiste Mugiraneza and Elias Uzamukunda traveled to France for professional trials in French first division clubs Le Havre and FC Nantes respectively. While Haruna and Mugiraneza returned immediately, Uzamukunda trials were prolonged by his masters. Based on reports from the media, the duo are said to have not impressed at the highest level and were instead sent to academy ranks at Le Havre, a club battling to avoid relegation. After both Rwandan internationals realized their future was being channeled to academy ranks, they decided to pack their bags and return home. With African competitions on their belts at the international level, going to the academy would be a disaster to their career. Even a lazy and doggy man, who can think of prolonging his stay in Europe and perhaps enjoy the worst wheather at the moment; you cannot leave international football and join the academy. The intriguing question here should be whether Le Havre considered age or skill default to send two international players to the academy. To my opinion, joining or having trials at such famous football clubs would not have been the start. You always start from low to the highest. Players or their managers might have misjudged their standards. You can not pick a player, who is not even the best at the regional, continental level and expect him to meet standards of a club in the French football top division. Both Haruna and Mugiraneza are good at local level but do not have the right qualities to compete with the best in Europe. They both lack the physical fitness and the pace to compete at the highest level. If I knew about the move before their departure, then I would have advised their manager or agents to try other lower European leagues like in Belgium, Denmark or even Turkey second division clubs. Many second division clubs in top European leagues are better than nearly all teams in East and central African region. To play in such competitive leagues one has to possess full potentials of a modern footballer, nurtured through football academies with good football culture and ethics. Many of our players have been frustrated at the professional stage. Many have failed the physical part of the game and I think before flying to Europe, one should try to find out measures and standards at which professional football is tested. Many of our local players have not had a chance to get through professionally run soccer academies, thus lack fundamental skills of a footballer. Haruna reportedly had trials at Bastia as a 15-years-old during Roger Palmgren’s reign; later the youngster was sent home for lacking the physical stamina of the game. Lack of height and physical agility might have rocked the local star. If Haruna is really young as his managers dictate, then he still has chance to look elsewhere in minor European professional leagues. But if the Rwandan international has an over-age syndrome like many of his fellow footballers in the land, then his fans might be praying for his offspring’s to prove the true genes of ‘senior’ Haruna. Speed, physical condition and skill determine the quality of any professional footballer. Missing one of the above qualities still gives a player an average chance to progress in professional football career, but lack of two qualities makes a player lie below standards. Perhaps Mugiraneza will have to collect his abilities and memorize his potentials. He has the skill to battle as a midfielder, but lacks the physical condition and pace to stop lions around the world football. Lack of good physique and pace was one of the major weaknesses of the Rwanda U-20 team campaign in the Africa Youth Championship on home soil, two months ago. Ends

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Why local players fail professional tests