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NewsDay

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Harare City edge 10-man Byo City

Sport
HARARE City recovered from a goal down to secure victory against 10-man Bulawayo City in a Castle Lager Premier Soccer League tie at Rufaro Stadium yesterday.

Harare City . . . . . . . . . . . (0) 2 Bulawayo City . . . . . . . . .(1) 1 HARARE City recovered from a goal down to secure victory against 10-man Bulawayo City in a Castle Lager Premier Soccer League tie at Rufaro Stadium yesterday.

BY TAWANDA TAFIRENYIKA

Harare-city-coach-moses-chunga

The visitors played the last six minutes plus optional time of the match a man down after Brian Chikwenya was shown a red card for a deliberate handball inside his box.

The incident came just moments after Ronald Chitiyo had scored Harare City’s equaliser, cancelling out Morris Kadzola’s first half goal.

William Manondo converted the penalty which turned out to be the winner as City bounced back from Sunday’s 2-1 defeat to Dynamos.

The home side showed their intent early on and could have run away with the match had Chitiyo and Diro Nyenye’s goals not been ruled off for offside by referee Thabani Bamala.

Bulawayo City appeared to soak all the pressure from the home team with Lewis Ncube coming close on 41 minutes only to direct his effort wide.

They were 1-0 up at the stroke of half-time when Kadzola beat goalkeeper Tafadzwa Dube off a cross by Trevor Ndlovu.

In the second half, Harare City coach Moses Chunga (pictured) threw in Raymond Uchena in place of Jimmy Tigere and pulled off Honey Chimutimunzeve replacing him with William Manondo.

The change paid off on the 80th minute, with Chitiyo scoring a brilliant goal, profiting from a set-up by Farai Madhanaga to beat goalkeeper Ndodana Sibanda with a low shot for the equaliser.

Buoyed by the goal, Chunga’s men began to launch a series of raids in their opponents’ goal, and Chikwenya appeared to deliberately handle a goalbound shot by Chitiyo.

Bamala pointed to the spot while Chikwenya was shown a red card for his troubles.

Manondo took the responsibility, sending the goalkeeper the wrong way.

With the victory, Harare City leapt to seventh place with 30 points while Bulawayo City dropped to eighth place with 28 points.

“(The victory) is sweet considering it was the first time we came from behind. The players showed character today. We want continuity, but we had too many injuries and if you noticed today it was difficult for us to build from the flanks and I hope when the other guys come back from injuries, we will have options. We were giving our opponents too much room in the first half and in the second half I told them we had to keep possession and we managed to win,” Chunga said.

His counterpart Try Ncube said, “We were guilty of defending too deep in the second half and the penalty decision, I doubt it was a penalty. We are disappointed, we wanted all three points. We defended too deep and I think that cost us the match,” he said.