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Tadious Manyepo
Sports Reporter
THE Castle Lager Premier Soccer League season is still at its infancy but free-scoring Ngezi Platinum Stars forward Nyasha Chintuli says he is determined to win the Golden Boot award.
The 27-year-old is already leading the scoring charts, having found the target four times in just three games.
With the rate he is scoring, it is hard to easily dismiss him given the top scorer of this league for the past 10 years has failed to score more than 20 goals.
Chintuli hit a hat-trick in Ngezi Platinum’s opening match against Bulawayo City which they won 5-0.
The speedy forward then scored the opening goal in their 3-0 drubbing of Herentals at Baobab on Saturday in the only Premiership match played over the weekend after the other eight fixtures were postponed owing to Covid-19 cases.
“I know the season is still very young and disturbances can occur maybe due to injuries or lack of form but what I aam simply saying is that I want to win the Golden Boot Award,” said Chintuli.
“As a striker, I am employed by the team to score goals. That is my primary role in the team. I have always been dreaming of one day picking the needed form to score goals on a regular basis. It seems, I am on the way. I want to score as many goals as possible but my target, which I think is realistic, is to score 22 goals this season.”
Chintuli once attained the top-scorer’s feat when he netted 18 times while still playing for then Eastern Region Division One side Tenax in 2018.
He shared the prize with Stephen Sibanda who was turning out for Manica Diamonds but it is Chintuli who emerged out the biggest winner from those awards after he was voted the Soccer Star of the Year in that league.
“Then Triangle came out knocking. That is how I ended up at the Lowveld team in the 2019 season where I scored seven goals.”
He was then signed by Ngezi Platinum in 2020 together with former Triangle teammates Anelka Chivandire, Kudzai Chigwida and goalkeeper Marion Chang.
Chintuli said after his team’s disappointing loss to FC Platinum in the Chibuku Super Cup last weekend, the target is now to win the league title.
“It’s that simple, our target has always been to win the league title although the Chibuku Super Cup would have been very good.
“But after we failed to win that cup, we have to fight for the league title. We know it’s early days like what I have said earlier but we are a team which believes in our abilities.
“We know the competition in the league is very stiff. There are a lot of contenders for the title, including FC Platinum, Dynamos, CAPS United, Highlanders, Chicken Inn and Triangle. There are also some dark horses in the race and it is always difficult to sustain the charge but we are saying we have a team which is capable of doing that.
“All the players at the team know that we are capable and we believe in ourselves more than anything else. It’s not going to be easy, though, but we will fight till the end.”
Ngezi lead the standings on seven points after winning two of their three matches while drawing the other one against Highlanders.
Online Reporter