Benjani Mwaruwari recalls Erwin Zogg shedding tears as he tried to persuade him to persevere with AJ Auxerre. Were it not for Zogg’s tears, Mwaruwari’s career might have taken a different course, as the world came to know it.
Zogg’s eagerness for the move was understandable, as Auxerre was a top team competing in the UEFA Champions League. But Mwaruwari’s reluctance was also understandable. He was tired of warming the bench in cold Europe and needed a coach who could put an arm around his shoulder and assure him of his importance. Once bitten in Zurich, he was now fearful of being deemed surplus to requirements again.
“That guy [Erwin Zogg] saved my career. He convinced me to stay, and I ended up cancelling my flight. While we were at the hotel, the coach who used to coach me at Grasshopper found a new club [Lausanne in Switzerland], and he phoned to ask about me; he was keen to sign me,” Mwaruwari tells FARPost.
“While driving to him [with Zogg], Auxerre called and told him they had changed their mind. I said ‘no; I am not going there’. That coach made it clear he had many strikers. I wanted to play, not sit on the bench.
“Auxerre were in the Champions League, and my agent thought they’d be best for me. I didn’t care about the Champions League. I wanted to go where I would be loved.
“We disagreed with my agent. I was not happy, so when he stopped the car to talk to me, I walked off. He followed me, trying to convince me.”
STEPPING IN FOR CISSE
They walked for about a kilometre, but stubborn Benjy insisted he wasn’t going there. “The white man cried; he called his friends and everyone I knew, telling them that I was missing a good opportunity.
“He even phoned Jomo Sono, and I told Jomo that I was going to Auxerre. I knew the feeling of being a benchwarmer, and now I wanted to play. Eventually, I agreed to go to Auxerre,” he says.
At Auxerre, he found a new lease of life, scoring on his debut and quickly becoming a fan favourite. “Cisse picked up an injury and was out for a month, so I played in his place. I remember my first game: Cisse got injured with 20 minutes left,” said Mwaruwari.
“We were three of us warming up on the touchline. I was not even thinking they would call me, and the coach picked me. I was nervous, and in my head, I was like: ‘Is this white man crazy? Why would he pick me out of all these players?’
“My first touch was a goal. In the second game, we played away from home, and I scored two goals against Monaco, and then at Nice away, I scored two. Fans at Auxerre went crazy, and I won Player of the Month awards for September and October. The coach said, “This is my diamond”, when asked about me.
“When Cisse recovered, the coach pulled me aside and told me I would start on the bench. I had no problem. The crowd had a song for me, and they started singing, ‘Benjani, clapping hands, Benjani’. So, the coach had no choice but to bring me on,” he says.
DRAMATIC MOVE TO PORTSMOUTH
After an injury-ravaged second season, he continued to shine at Auxerre. There was a stellar display against a marauding Arsenal side in the Champions League in which he gave a defence that included the likes of Ashley Cole and Sol Campbell a torrid time. Rumours of a possible move to an even stronger league grew stronger.
“The following season, I sustained an injury. I didn’t play the whole season because of a groin injury. I had to be operated on and played the last game of the season.”
The following season, he picked up the pace, scoring about 13 goals before moving to Portsmouth. The move to Portsmouth was as dramatic as his transfer to Auxerre. Mwaruwari would keep his wife, who had taken a liking to France’s environment and culture, in the dark as he jetted off to the British Isles without notice.
For that trip, he used the same Piper Malibu light aircraft whose crash would result in the death of Argentine footballer Emiliano Sala in 2019.
“It is interesting how the Portsmouth move happened. I was sleeping during the day after training when I received a phone call. And I was told that Portsmouth had sent a private jet to pick me up at the airport.
“I thought this guy [Willie McKay] was crazy because you can’t just come and pick me up. He insisted, so I went to see the guy and had coffee with him. “The first statement he said to me when I arrived at the airport, he told me his kids were hungry, and he wanted to make this deal happen; he said there was a team that was interested in me, and I said where? He asked where my passport was; I said at home.”
AND MANCHESTER CITY CAME CALLING
“I wanted to go to England, but I couldn’t tell my wife that I had decided to go. She was enjoying France, the fashion, wine and quality food. “Everything was good there. So, I went home to get the passport and told her I was returning. So I took the risk, took the passport as I had decided to leave, left in a private jet, we arrived in Portsmouth, I met with Redknapp at a hotel, and I did my medicals the following day and signed the deal.
“While I was there, that’s when I called my wife. She couldn’t believe it,” he says. At Pompey, after some initial problems, Mwaruwari took to life in the English Premier League like a duck to water.
“Life in Portsmouth was great, even though I had a slow start, but after that, I started to score, and when you are scoring as a striker, your life becomes nicer, then life starts to be good again. I loved my time at Portsmouth, especially with the fans, they are amazing, and when I wasn’t playing as well, they would sing my name,” he says.
With Mwaruwari at the top of the scoring charts by the middle of the 2007/08 season, it would not be long before other sides came calling, with the ambitious Manchester City making a deadline day move. Like all his transfers, there would be a bit of drama to spice up the occasion.
“The City move, I remember we played against Manchester, and we beat them 1-0 in the quarterfinals of the FA Cup. On our flight back, I remember Harry saying, ‘Something might happen tomorrow, so don’t switch off your phone as we try to work out something.’
‘THEY MADE UP A STORY THAT I FELL ASLEEP’: MWARUWARI
“In my mind, I’m thinking tomorrow is deadline day and nothing is going to happen; I switched off my phone the whole morning, and I received a call on the home landline and was told the deal was on, so that thing happened over the phone because there was no time.
“One thing I remember, I pushed Man City to the last limit because at some point I thought they were trying me, to see if I am loyal to Portsmouth.”
“With 12 hours before the window closed, I was still in Portsmouth, and I was supposed to go and do my medicals in Manchester. I was scheduled to arrive in Manchester around 6 pm, but they started calling me, and I told them there was a flight delay due to the weather.
“They made up a story that I fell asleep and missed my flight. There was drama, there was no time for medicals, so we discussed the deal, the deal had to be sealed, and we sent the papers to the FA to notify them that the value is complete,” says Mwaruwari, who hung his boots in 2014.
That sudden move to City, which seemed to catch everyone unaware, including Mwaruwari himself, perhaps denied him the one chance he had to snatch the golden boot from ahead of the likes of Cristiano Ronaldo and Didier Drogba, the two other frontrunners in that race.
“They killed my momentum and took my goals; I was going to score 20 goals if I had stayed at Pompey.
“I was the leading top scorer in the Premier League with 13 goals at Portsmouth, above Ronaldo, who had eight at the time, I was above Drogba at that time.
WITNESSING THE DAWN OF AN ERA AT MANCHESTER CITY
“To arrive at Man City, I need to start combination and the first game in Derby against Manchester United. I scored, and I could have carried on and played better, but unfortunately, I only scored three goals in like 14 games,” the former Zimbabwe national team assistant coach says.
The 47-year-old witnessed the dawn of a new era at City, an era that, over the last decade and a half, has translated into total dominance by the Citizens. For him, however, those years at City were the start of his twilight, as a career that had taken him around the globe finally began winding down.
“The new owners came at Man City with big ambitions, and at the time I was injured, a layoff for a year and age was catching up, too many injuries in the body and then I moved to Blackburn and stayed there for a year and then back to Portsmouth and stayed for a year,” says Mwaruwari, who holds a UEFA A License.
Stints with Chippa United and Bidvest Wits capped off a largely successful career. The young boy who left home without his examination results and never looked back had travelled the world, playing football at the highest level in four different countries on two continents.
Now, after taking over the reins at his boyhood club, Highlanders, he hopes to be the man who turns their fortunes around.
RELATED STORY: PART 1: The football jetsetter: Benjani Mwaruwari’s life as seen through his colourful transfers