Coach making factory

Robson Sharuko Senior Sports Editor
IF Tonderai Ndiraya wins the Castle Lager Premiership title this season, he will add his name to a number of illustrious DeMbare sons who have guided local clubs to become kings of the domestic football scene.

Legendary coach Sunday Chidzambwa heads that list with seven league titles, three of them coming in the era of the modern Premiership in 1994, 1995 and 1997, before he walked out on the Glamour Boys two years later.

Callisto Pasuwa, his heir apparent, has won four straight league titles, the first coach to achieve that feat in the domestic Premiership, taking over a Glamour Boys outfit that was staggering in the final stages of the 2011 marathon, and transforming them into a championship-winning side that year.

Two other DeMbare sons, Moses “Bambo” Chunga, who won the league title with Gunners in 2009, and David “Yogi” Mandigora, who ended the Glamour Boys’ 10-year wait for the biggest prize in Zimbabwe football in 2007, have also been crowned champions.

Highlanders’ sons — Rahman Gumbo (two league titles with Bosso), Methembe Ndlovu and Barry Daka, who won the championship with the Bulawayo giants in 2006 and 1993 — have also fared very well in guiding teams to the Promised Land.

But 22 years after Chris Sibanda and Morrison Sifelani launched the modern day Premiership after breaking from the direct supervision of ZIFA, why is it that not even one former CAPS United son has guided a team to the championship?

Even before the era of the modern Premiership, when CAPS United were the undisputed Cup Kings in the country in a golden period for the club in the ‘80s and early ‘90s, the Green Machine did not produce a coach who won the league championship.

In sharp contrast, Dynamos’ sons dominated that area just after Independence with the Glamour Boys winning the first four league titles, and then being stopped in their tracks by a team that was coached by one of them, Shepherd Murape and his steam-rolling Black Rhinos side of ’84.

Since the start of the modern Premiership, Dynamos sons have won the league title NINE times as coaches, Highlanders sons have won it FOUR times, but the Green Machine is yet to produce a coach to guide a team to the Holy Grail.

Instead, on the three occasions they have won the title since Independence in 1996 (under Steve Kwashi) and in 2004 and 2005 (under Charles Mhlauri), they needed technical expertise plucked from elsewhere to turn them into champions.

Kwashi might have made his name at Zimbabwe Saints, but he is also part of the DeMbare family, having played for the Glamour Boys, at some stage of his career.

The closest that CAPS United sons came to winning the league championship was in 1995 when Shacky Tauro, working in tandem with Joel Shambo, inspired Blackpool to a second place finish in a title race won in controversial fashion by Dynamos after both teams finished with the same number of points (58) and goal difference (plus 25).

Ndochi officials were left feeling aggrieved that DeMbare were given unfair advantage after their last match against Black Rhinos was played a day later than Blackpool’s final tie, which meant the Glamour Boys went into that decisive game knowing what they needed to be crowned champions.

Today’s CAPS United, chasing a first league title in 10 years, are under the guidance of Mark Mathe, who traces his roots in the City of Kings, although two of his lieutenants — Brenna Msiska and Tostao Kwashi — are former sons of the Green Machine.

So, why is it that, over close to 40 years, since CAPS United came into the top-flight league, they haven’t produced coaches who have gone on to win the league championship the way their bitter rivals Dynamos and Highlanders have done?

Even in the domestic Premiership today, there is a huge influence of former Dynamos sons who are coaching different teams, while no CAPS United son finds himself in charge of any club in the top-flight league.

Lloyd Mutasa is the head coach of WhaWha and Taurai Mangwiro is the head coach at Harare City.

Biggie Zuze is the assistant coach at high-flying Lowveld side Triangle, where he was the head coach last year before the management decided to bring in the expertise of the highly-rated Zambian gaffer Kelvin Kaindu.

The Saturday Herald sought the views of some of the country’s football experts yesterday to get their explanation as to why the Green Machine doesn’t produce coaches good enough to win the league championship?

Charles “CNN” Mabika

“There has been a mistrust in the past between the CAPS United leadership and their former sons and this has contributed to the situation that we have today. You can go back to the days of Julius Chifokoyo, when he was leading the team, and you will see that there used to be a deliberate policy to try and nurture some of their sons like Joel Shambo, Shacky Tauro, Stanford “Stix” Mtizwa and Friday Phiri to ensure that they, one day, take over the coaching of the team.

“But, somewhere down the line, this policy was discarded, when that mistrust crept in, and you remember CAPS then started even looking outside the country and bringing the likes of Ntibehene Bonsu, a Ghanaian, who did well, but did not win the championship.

“At around that time, there was a feeling, among the CAPS United sons, that they were being betrayed by their leadership which did not believe that they had the capacity to take over the coaching of the team the way that their rivals Dynamos were doing.

“So, it’s something that is a long story, and while the Dynamos guys know that it’s the culture at their club that one of them will be picked to one day coach the team, it is rather different at CAPS United because they grow up feeling that their leaders don’t trust them that, when they become coaches, they can be given that huge responsibility to coach the team and become successful.

“So, maybe, you can say that frustration has played its part, in some way, while Dynamos players, who want to be coaches, are encouraged by a system, which they know has been there for a long time, that will make them coaches, if not at this club, then somewhere, and the fact that a number of them have been successful makes it easy for them to inspire a lot of others to follow suit.

“I know a number of CAPS United sons who have been grazing wildly, elsewhere, and these include Friday Phiri, Steve Chisango, Stanford “Stix” Mtizwa, Charlie Jones, and there is nothing that can prove to us that they could not have made it with their team, if given the chance and respected in their job, because blood is always thicker than water and they know the culture at the club and what is needed for success.

“I have a lot of faith in what Farai Jere is trying to do at CAPS United because he has been clear, from the word go, that there is no point in celebrating if his club cannot win the league championship because that is the one title that defines success and he has a brilliant vision to try and take his club forward and he will always have my support.

“This thing about CAPS sons not making it as coaches, that is not winning league titles, is something that started long before Jere came on board although I would expect him now that he has taken control of the team and wants to move it forward, so that they compete with their major rivals Dynamos and Highlanders, to call an all-stakeholder indaba, of all the former CAPS sons, so that they can share ideas and see what should be done to take their club to the next level.

“Having said that, I think it’s not correct to also say that only a CAPS son, or sons, will make the club champions because Mark Harrison wasn’t one of them, he came from nowhere, and he performed very well, beyond our expectations, during his short stay at the club and the club’s players were starting to believe that they can take on any team in the country.

“Dynamos and Highlanders are different because they have this culture that they have cultivated, over the years, that one of them will always be there in charge, if not the head coach then he will be the understudy, and at Dynamos he is likely to be the head coach all the time, and that has bred this big number of coaches that we see coming from their camp.”

George Deda (Football Agent)

“I think it’s something that we can’t explain, you can say that it was probably written that it will always be like that, because CAPS United have produced some coaches in the past but, somehow, they have not been as successful as those that have come from their rivals Dynamos and Highlanders.

“Shacky and Joel tried at Blackpool but that was all and I find myself struggling to get an explanation as to why Dynamos have produced all these coaches, including a lot of them who have won a lot of championships, while CAPS United haven’t done that.

“Maybe, you can say that Dynamos have their culture, that they will only be coached by a DeMbare son, except in rare circumstances, and that has encouraged other players to also dream that they can also rise one day and be given the chance to coach the team.

“I discussed this issue with Alois Bunjira and he is keen to be given a chance, one day, to coach his team CAPS United, rather than spend the rest of his association with the club in the boardroom, and he feels that, if he can get the right support, and other people to back him, he will make them great again.

“That is an ambitious young man, and that is very good, because it means that, in the long-term, he can get the chance, and it’s good, too, that Stewart Murisa is now coaching in Division One and who knows, what the two of them, with help from here and there, can one day do for CAPS United.

“Right now CAPS United have Tostao, and he is a young man and he is learning, and maybe in the future he will also be part of the dream coaching team, who knows, but you can’t blame CAPS because I think they have tried in the past, to give the job to their former players, but it hasn’t paid fruits the way it has done at Dynamos or Highlanders.”

Championship-winning coaches since 1993

’93 – Barry Daka (Highlanders, won with Bosso)

’94 – Sunday Chidzambwa (Dynamos, won with DeMbare)

’95 – Sunday Chidzambwa (Dynamos, won with DeMbare)

’96 – Steve Kwashi (Saints, DeMbare, won with CAPS United)

’97 – Sunday Chidzambwa (Dynamos, won with DeMbare)

‘98/’99 – Rahman Gumbo (Highlanders, won with Bosso)

2000 – Rahman Gumbo (Highlanders, won with Bosso)

2001 – Eddie May (British coach, won with Bosso)

2002 – Eddie May (British coach, won with Bosso)

2003 – Luke Masomere (Hwange, won with AmaZulu)

2004 – Charles Mhlauri (Zimbabwe Saints, won with CAPS United)