ASSISTANT coaches stole the limelight over the weekend in the Castle Lager Premier Soccer League, with five of them recording precious wins — four of them away from home — in the absence of the bosses who are attending a Caf A Licence course in the capital.
SPORTS EDITOR
The biggest wins included that of Caps United, who beat a clueless Chicken Inn 2-1 at Luveve Stadium in Bulawayo to earn their first away victory of the season that saw them nestle at the top of the standings, albeit for 24 hours, on Saturday.
After the completion of Matchday 14, Caps are third with 26 points — one point behind leaders Highlanders — heading into the Harare Derby against Dynamos at this National Sports Stadium this coming Sunday.
Hardlife Zvirekwi and Moses Muchenje scored the crucial goals for Mike Madzivanyika (assistant to Taurai Mangwiro) at Luveve to beat the championship-winning Joey Antipas.
Chicken Inn’s performance was probably their worst this season as Antipas was simply out-thought and outsmarted — his players could not even string three passes together and there was no clear formation they were employing to win the game.
If that is the way Antipas wants to run things at Chicken Inn, then one can safely say the GameCocks are heading for a disaster.
ZPC Kariba, under Tembo Chuma as his boss Saul Chaminuka was also in school, travelled to the Colliery to face Hwange and played an attacking brand of football that saw then winning 2-0.
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ZPC had drawn nine matches and Chaminuka seemed to be content with preserving his job and the status quo of the club while Tembo, who learnt one or two tricks under Kelvin Kaindu at Highlanders, went for thejugular and came up with three points.
Masimba Dinyero took charge of Harare City in the absence of Bigboy Mawiwi and came up with his own magic touch as they scored twice late in the second half to beat Chiredzi 2-1.
Not that Chiredzi was expected to win, they did not train for three days while Moses Chunga with-held the team’s kit and licences.
Chunga was fired last week, but has claimed he is a director of the club and cannot be relieved of his duties. But his power-hungry stance has not helped the club at all; he should let go and let the Chiredzi community decide on the future of the club.
With Luke Masomere also in class, Timothy Masachi took charge of Buffaloes in their trip to Maglas to face Shabanie Mine.
Shabanie have not been beaten at home this season and everything seemed to be going according to script when Daniel Chakupe gave them the lead in the first half against the run of play.
But Masachi pulled a trick from Masomere’s “medical kit” — he calls himself doctor of Zimbabwean football — and saw Buffaloes score twice in the second half through Roy Mwenga and Prosper Matizanadzo.
How Mine’s Isheunesu Chaka did not measure in the absence of Philani Ncube as his side fell 2-1 to Highlanders while Dynamos’ Philemon Mutyakureva made light work of Black Rhinos, winning 2-1 at the NSS.
