daniel chigunwe
Tadious Manyepo
Zimpapers Sports Hub
THE gods must have scripted this one for it to pan the way it did.
For literally the rest of the season, they never looked like they were going to be the champions.
But Herentals Queens have, for years, showed they have the clout and the nerves.
They call themselves “Vagoni Vebasa” and they just confirmed they are when they did what they needed to do in the last four games of the season compressed inside a fortnight.
And on Saturday, they inserted their signature inside the Women Football League’s royalty.
They needed to win against relegated Hope Academy away at Luveve to secure their third title in a row. And, they were never going to have any mercy on a crest-fallen team that were even unable to fulfill two of their previous three games building up to this fixture.
That meant Hope Academy were a bit on the negative in terms of match fitness and they were thoroughly exposed when shipping seven goals with Maudy Mafuruse and Praynance Zvawanda getting a hattrick each and Elizabeth Bvunzawabaya scoring late to underline the misery.
But in reality Herentals Queens had done the rest of the work three days earlier when they gallantly fought back to wina point, that was worth its weight in gold, in a 1-1 draw against Correctional Queens.
Once two of their championship rivals Chapungu and Black Rhinos cancelled out each other in the equation, the former winning 2-1 in what proved to be a fatal blow for the latter, Herentals popped up to fully maximise on the situation.
With Rhinos dropping to second, Herentals needed only four points from the final two games.
But those points were never going to be delivered while they were in bed.
Correctional Queens, who stopped both Black Rhinos and Chapungu were determined to derail Vagoni Vebasa.
They were almost done with them but then their ultra-defensive approach once they surged into the lead backfired terribly as they conceded a penalty which gave Herentals the point they badly needed with only 12 minutes on the clock.
Herentals celebrated wildly after putting Hope Academy to the cleaners and it was understandable.
They never looked like retaining the championship as at some point in the race as they were a good seven points behind both Rhinos and Chapungu, thanks to their participation in the CAF Women’s Champions League COSAFA qualifiers in Malawi back in August.
Actually, they appeared to be have been elbowed out of the contest when they lost 1-0 to Rhinos to literally hand the advantage to the soldiers and Chapungu. But once they got their groove back after their participation in Malawi, they were never going to be taken off the road.
Online Reporter