Gwekwerere at Orlando Pirates

Pirates.
The CAPS United striker left for Johannesburg on Wednesday after Pirates, who won the South African championship last season, made a shock move for the Zimbabwean forward.
Gwekwerere will train with the Buccaneers for the next few days with the Pirates’ coaching staff having been tasked by the club’s owners to take a very close look at the player and recommend whether he can be given a contract.

Although no comment could be obtained from either the CAPS United or Pirates officials, The Herald was informed late yesterday that Gwekwerere received a surprise offer from the Soweto giants this week to come and prove he can make the grade at the Bucs.
Although Pirates have turned themselves into the strongest team in Super Diski, winning the Treble last season, there is a feeling within the club that there is need to reinforce their frontline. The Bucs secured former Bafana Bafana forward Benni McCarthy at the beginning of this season in a big-money deal but it appears that they still need more options upfront. Bongani Ndlulula has been leading the attack in recent games but he is still learning the ropes and the Pirates’ management believe they need more experienced players in their forward line.

“Evans has been asked to come and prove himself and it came as a bit of a shock for the player because Pirates is a very big club and they have been doing very well of late,” said the sources. There has been a school of thought that Evans’ best days in South African football are over after his spells at Moroka Swallows, FC AK and Jomo Cosmos.
But that has all changed after the surprise move by the Bucs and the onus is on Evans to prove that he can play at the level that the coaches at the club want and, given that the Brazilian coach is new and fair, he has a good chance if he can make a good impression.

“It is never easy getting a breakthrough at a club like Pirates but also it is not every day that you get a call, from nowhere, to come and try your luck at the Bucs.
“The most important thing here is that it is Pirates who made the call and arranged for him to fly to Johannesburg and that means they are serious in their intentions and it’s up to Evans to do his stuff and who knows how it will all come out?”
Gwekwerere has been scoring goals, of late, for his club CAPS United and while there was always a possibility that he could get a call from a South African club, that was largely expected from the likes of Platinum Stars and Maritzburg FC rather than Pirates.

The striker has said that although he has gone through tough spells this season, after crossing the Great Divide to leave Dynamos and settle at CAPS United, he was beginning to enjoy his game at the Green Machine and expected the goals to flow.

CAPS United have become a focal point for South African clubs looking for players after the success enjoyed by Nyasha Mushekwi and Method Mwanjali in their first season in Super Diski.
Mushekwi won the Golden Boot at Mamelodi Sundowns, despite not commanding a regular first team slot in the first half of the season, and finished the race for the national top goal-scorer just a goal shy of the winner, Knowledge Musona.

Mwanjali was influential in the heart of the Sundowns’ defence that the club’s management decided to give him the captain’s armband this season.
“There is big interest in the Zimbabwean players among the South African clubs and CAPS United is a big target because of how the players who left the club last season have become successful,” said the sources.

“Simba Sithole was bought by Sundowns because there was a feeling that he could be as good as, if not better than, Nyasha and they can bide their time because he is young and will get better.
“Now, even Evans has become marketable that Pirates are having a look at him.”

The downside of this is that the CAPS United management have come under fire from some of their fans who believe that they are concentrating more on grooming players for the South African clubs rather than keeping them at the club so that it can compete for honours on the local scene.

The club’s leadership was forced to respond recently where it published figures which showed that the money they have spent recruiting players on the local scene was almost the same as what they have received from the sale of those who have moved to South Africa. The Green Machine management said it was impossible to keep a player at home, once a South African club showed its interests, because the player’s focus shifted quickly from playing for CAPS United to earning big bucks playing for the club in Super Diski. Given that CAPS United cannot compete with the South

Africans, when it comes to paying the players, the Green Machine leadership has been claiming that they become powerless to stop the players. Inevitably, their stars go for less than what the club might have wanted because it turns into a buyers’ market rather than one for the seller.