Online Reporter
Innocent Kurira at Barbourfields Stadium
Highlanders FC . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0
ZPC Kariba FC . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0
Seven games in, and still no win.
Highlanders FC are playing well, creating chances, controlling matches, but they cannot score and it’s now costing them. Yesterday at Barbourfields, it happened again. Another draw. Another missed chance. Another afternoon that slipped away.
This one felt heavier.
Bosso dominated from the first whistle, pinned ZPC Kariba FC back for long spells and created enough chances to win comfortably. Instead, they walked off to frustration, while sections of the Barbourfields crowd let their feelings be known.
The performance was there. The result was not.
Rainsome Pavari should have settled nerves early, finding himself in space inside two minutes, but a heavy first touch let him down at the crucial moment. That miss set the tone.
Highlanders kept coming.
Nomore Chinyerere tried his luck from range and dragged his effort wide. Mongameli Tshuma then picked out Benjamin Adeogun in the 12th minute, but the Nigerian forward blasted over when he should have at least tested the goalkeeper.
The pressure built, wave after wave, but the breakthrough never came.
Adeogun forced a save from goalkeeper Future Sibanda midway through the half, one of several key interventions that kept the visitors in the contest. Set-pieces followed, opportunities stacked up, but Bosso lacked the final touch.
Even when Kudakwashe Mahachi delivered a teasing ball into the box deep in first-half stoppage time, there was no one to finish it.
The second half brought more of the same.
Isaac Ngoma came close with a header that drifted just wide early after the restart. Never Rauzhi and Mbeba also had their moments as Highlanders camped in the opposition half, but the story refused to change.
Sibanda stood firm.
The ZPC Kariba goalkeeper produced a string of saves, stayed composed under pressure and slowly turned from a busy figure into the difference-maker on the day.
Shelton Moyo had a sight at goal late on, but by then the pattern was clear. Highlanders were in control, but not in command.
Seven matches, seven draws. No wins.
That number is now impossible to ignore.
Head coach Benjani Mwaruwari did not hide from it. He felt it.
“I can feel the togetherness when I left them in the dressing room, they want to cry because they need that win. I think we will get that win soon. Sometimes when you are desperate it becomes difficult. We have to go back and train hard on the last third,” he said.
There is belief in the dressing room. There is effort on the pitch. But in front of goal, something is missing.
For ZPC Kariba, the point was hard-earned and well executed.
Coach Newton Mashipe praised his side’s discipline after absorbing sustained pressure.
“I am happy with the way the boys performed especially defensively. Highlanders are playing some beautiful football and I understand where they are going. Our game plan was to hold them up to thirty minutes and we did that,” he said.
They held them longer than that.
And in the end, that was enough.
