Online Reporter
Lawrence Moyo
CAPS United supporters have seemingly accepted that club owner, Farai Jere will not be wielding the axe on coach Lloyd Chitembwe anytime soon despite a disappointing start to the 2025 Castle Lager Premier Soccer League season.
It has been the joint-worst start by CAPS United in the past 22 seasons.
The Harare giants are currently third from bottom with four points from five matches, nine points behind leaders Ngezi Platinum.
CAPS United have already lost three of their first five matches and might as well be waving goodbye to the league title if history is anything to go by. When they last won the Premiership title in 2016, CAPS United only lost THREE matches out of 30 matches.
This week Jere said while he expects a change in results, it is not his intention to wield the axe on Chitembwe so soon and even cited a mistake made previously when they yielded to pressure and let the CAPS United legend go.
When CAPS United lost at home to Ngezi Platinum last Sunday, disgruntled supporters staged protests against Chitembwe and even confronted him both inside the stadium after the post-match interview and outside as he drove home.
They have now taken their frustrations to social media where they are lashing out at any post by the club, demanding the dismissal of Chitembwe.
Even a post on the availability of replica jerseys is overwhelmed by comments on Chitembwe and current results with little engagement on the actual post.
One posted:
“All CAPS United fans by heart should boycott these matches till Chitembwe is fired, or demand that he be fired. We are tired of being a mediocre club.”
Another said:
“The only life coach I know is Jomo Sono relegated from the premier league I don’t know how many seasons ago and he is failing to get promotion back into PL tichafunda hedu.”
Meanwhile, assistant coach Tonderai Marume said the build-up to the game against Highlanders is different
“Games against Highlanders always come with a lot of hype but this time around the situation is slightly different. We can admit that we have not been performing and getting results as we expected but, like in the previous seasons, we usually pick form when playing against big teams.
“We have been preparing since Tuesday, and you can tell from the preparations that the players are geared up. We also as the technical team are geared up, we want to make sure that we restore good performances and try to get a good result and move on from there.
“Of course, winning games against big clubs is always priceless but this one there are many this attached to it -the results that have not been coming our way. So far, we have gone for two games without collecting points. It’s a game that is very important to the team, it’s a game that is very important to the CAPS United family and collecting points from this game is going to be very, very important to us.”
He says their plan is to keep CAPS United among the best teams in the country and they will go all out to get maximum points from Barbourfields and restore the confidence levels required to win matches regularly.
In a message to the disgruntled CAPS United supporters, Marume pleaded with them to bear with the team.
“Supporters are an important factor in any football organisation and what makes a football club what it is a composition of different stakeholders.
“As one of the major stakeholders they also have to understand that, inasmuch as it pains them to lose matches, we as players and coaches, also go through the same kind of pain. Maybe ours is more because this is what we are paid to do. They should know that we are also concerned…what we are promising them is that they will be back to happy days.”
On the squad, Marume said they do not have any injury concerns.
“So far all the players that are supposed to play are available.”
