Chronicle Editor
Innocent Kurira, Sports Reporter
BULAWAYO CHIEFS are just 90 minutes away from staging yet another miraculous relegation survival.
Chiefs brightened their chances of survival with an impressive 1-0 victory over Bosso on Wednesday. Does that mean job done? Not quite.
The Twitter champions just need a point against Herentals at Luveve Stadium tomorrow to earn another dance in the topflight league.
For a side that has been fighting relegation since the opening week of the campaign, it is a miracle Chiefs are in a position that they are in now. They got their league campaign underway with a 0-5 mauling by Chapungu at Mandava Stadium when they were under Joseph Sibindi. It was to be Sibindi’s first and last league match in charge.
Coach, Thulani Sibanda, has attributed the team’s dramatic turnaround in the late stages of the season to his application of sports science to enhance his side’s performance.
“If you look at the way we came out of relegation I think it’s a question of good periodisation, where people must take sports science seriously because nobody imagined Bulawayo Chiefs ever coming out of relegation. In terms of technique, we are not a team that is rich enough to attract the best technique in the country, even in terms of tactics you realise there are more senior coaches in the league who are more tactical than us so I think our conditioning made the difference why we finished stronger than many other teams.
“We decided to do a pre-season inside the season and most people criticised it. I think Bulawayo Chiefs is a typical example of the reason why people should embrace sports science in football and any other sport code,” said Sibanda.
Sibanda is a holder of a Bachelor of Science Honours degree in Sports Science and Coaching from the National University of Science and Technology. He also has a Scottish C license badge and a Caf B coaching badge.
Chiefs have a massive game tomorrow and their gaffer has called on his charges not to be complacent.
“We are in a much more comfortable position than we were. We should not relax because anything can happen. Herentals have a better goal difference than us.
“Actually, most of the teams there have better goal differences than us, so we can’t relax. We just have to stick to what we have been doing,” he said. – @innocentskizoe
Londile Moyo
Online Reporter