Online Reporter
Veronica Gwaze-Zimpapers Sports Hub
THE 2025 Castle Lager Premier Soccer League Golden Boot race has become a sprint to the finish.
With just 10 games to play, TelOne’s Washington Navaya and MWOS striker Billy Veremu are deadlocked on 11 goals each, both chasing not only the top scorer’s crown but Lynoth Chikuhwa’s 17-goal benchmark from last season.
Navaya, the early season pacesetter, looked unstoppable in the opening months.
He rattled in a goal in each of his first five matches, then hit a brace against Manica Diamonds to take his tally to seven in just seven games.
His start made a statement, the 31-year-old was far from finished and hungry for the one honour missing from his PSL career.
But football rarely follows the script.
Since Match-day 20, Navaya hasn’t found the back of the net, and the gap he had carefully built has vanished.
Enter Veremu.
The MWOS forward started slower, but his mid-season run was relentless, turning the race into a head-to-head showdown.
Steadily, he reeled Navaya in until the two were level, and now they are separated by nothing more than the fine margins of form, confidence and nerve.
The numbers tell their own story.
Both average 0.48 goals per game.
To beat Chikuhwa’s mark, they need at least six more goals each before the curtain comes down.
That means scoring in every other game, no small task in a league where defenders have become increasingly organised and ruthless.
For Navaya, the pressure is motivation. “We’re counting down to the finish, and that pushes you to give more,” he said.
“I believe I can still do it.”
Veremu is equally determined.
“It won’t be easy, but as someone chasing a record, I believe in the remaining games I can work some magic,” he said with a smile that barely hides the weight of expectation.
Former Warriors captain Moses Chunga has doubts about their chances of toppling Chikuhwa’s tally, and his reasoning cuts deep into the state of Zimbabwean football.
Ultimately, that also casts a huge shadow on the current crop forwards eclipsing the late Norman Maroto’s 20 goal-mark, which has stood for 15 years.
Maroto, fired home 22 goals in the 2010 season as he inspired the now defunct Gunners to the league championship title. Chikuhwa was three goals shy of the 20-goal mark last year and five short of levelling the Maroto record.
“At this rate, they may not get there,” Chunga said. “We’re not producing enough clinical finishers because player development skips key stages. We take shortcuts.”
Chunga, currently in charge of Northern Region Soccer League outfit Chegutu Pirates, believes that striker production needs to go back to the basics, six key stages from initiation and technical mastery to tactical awareness and mental resilience.
“Zimbabwe has the talent,” Chunga said, “but without proper development, many promising players end up average. One year they’re fighting for the Golden Boot, the next they’ve disappeared from the charts.” At the rate strikers are struggling to find their range, it looks set to take some decades before Chunga’s own record is eclipsed.
At the peak of his powers, and donning the famous blue jersey of Dynamos, Chunga grabbed 46 goals in a 1986 season in which he was also crowned the Soccer Star of the Year.
Performance analyst Desmond Mhene, who is on the books of Triangle, has thrown a wildcard into the Golden Boot mix — Simba Bhora’s Namibian striker, Isaskar Gurirab.
With eight goals and a knack for explosive bursts, he’s the dark horse who could yet turn a two-man race into a three-way battle.
“If Gurirab hits a purple patch, anything is possible,” Mhene said.
“If Thandolwenkosi Ngwenya had stayed at FC Platinum, he’d be in this race too. But generally, 20 goals in our league is rare with the calibre of defenders now.” That defending, disciplined lines, tactical pressing and physicality is part of the challenge.
Mhene points out that modern strikers are judged on more than just goals. “They work closely with analysts and specialist coaches, learning the ideal number of touches before shooting, identifying production zones, everything down to where they receive the ball in the box,” he explained.
“It’s science now, but our clubs need to adopt it fully.”
For now, the science is simple: the next goal in this race could be the one that wins it. Ten matches, two men.
One prize. And perhaps, if they are clinical enough, a new record to write into PSL history.
