{"id":23740,"date":"2020-05-30T21:37:05","date_gmt":"2020-05-30T19:37:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.com\/zimbabwe\/?p=23740"},"modified":"2020-05-30T21:37:05","modified_gmt":"2020-05-30T19:37:05","slug":"mapeza-reflects-on-amazing-uefa-champions-league-experience","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.cc\/zimbabwe\/all-news\/mapeza-reflects-on-amazing-uefa-champions-league-experience","title":{"rendered":"Mapeza reflects on \u2018amazing\u2019 UEFA Champions League experience"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Former Warriors coach Norman Mapeza has recalled his experience in the UEFA Champions League with Galatasaray, describing it as the \u2018peak of his career.\u2019<\/p>\n<p>The 48-year-old tactician is one of the few Zimbabwean players to have graced the Champions League, and has opened up on the feeling of playing in the competition, which he took part in with the Turkish giants in the 1994-95 season.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhen I first went to Poland, I was afraid of snow. It was the first time I saw snow and I could not get out of the house. It was a good time for my career, it was the first time in Europe. The following year I received a proposal from Galatasaray and I ran to the running. I played in the Champions League against Barcelona and Manchester United,\u201d he told Polish newspaper Futbol Arsiv.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt was the peak of my career \u2026 Everyone wanted to play in these games. And let me remind you, then entering the Champions League was much more difficult than it is now, because only 16 teams could play at that time, not 32. This was an incredible feeling.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThen there were stars like Romario, Koeman or Guardiola, but none of them were Messi. There was no cliff between us. We were able to fight against Barcelona at breakeven. First of all, we had more experience. We lost to Barcelona with only 2-1 in Camp Nou.\u201d he added.<\/p>\n<p>Other Zimbabwean players to have played in Europe\u2019s premier club competition include Benjani Mwaruwari with AJ Auxerre and Marvelous Nakamba when he was still at Club Brugge.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Former Warriors coach Norman Mapeza has recalled his experience in the UEFA Champions League with Galatasaray, describing it as the \u2018peak of his career.\u2019 The 48-year-old tactician is one of the few Zimbabwean players to have graced the Champions League, and has opened up on the feeling of playing in the competition, which he took [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":11613,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,16],"tags":[821,810],"class_list":{"0":"post-23740","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-all-news","8":"category-sport","9":"tag-mapeza","10":"tag-sports-in-zimbabwe"},"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v24.1 (Yoast SEO v24.1) - 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