Tadious Manyepo
Zimpapers Sports Hub
LISIMATI Phakamile has stitched together some great history on the athletics track.
In May this year, he led Zimbabwe’s men 4x400m squad of Gerren Muwishi, Dennis Hove, Leeford Zuze, and Thandazani Ndhlovu to a new national record and a fifth-place finish at the Debswana World Relays in Gaborone, Botswana.
The feat ensured that the team qualified for the 2027 World Championships.
That is Phakamile, the veteran athletics coach who has nurtured winners on the track since his own injury in Namibia 21 years ago forced him into coaching.
And now he has done it on the football field leading Gwanda-based Super Strikers into their first ever trophy — the Dream Inn-GMI Central Region Division One Super 8 Cup.
Super Strikers beat Grain Tigers 2-1 in a feisty final played at Chahwanda Stadium on Saturday.
And when the final whistle blew, Phakamile erupted.
A team that was playing Division Two football last year was now lifting a Division One major trophy this year.
“I am happy. I am very happy. This is a big achievement for the team and for Gwanda,” said Phakamile.
“We worked hard. The boys worked hard. We believed in ourselves. And God blessed us with this trophy.
“It is our first trophy. It is our first season in Division One. To win a cup in our first season means a lot. It shows we are going somewhere.”
But here is the twist in the story. Phakamile did not set out to be a football coach.
He only came to coach football because Super Strikers was formed by his students at Gwanda High School.
In 2019, his students came to him and said, “Sir, coach us.”
They preferred to be coached by him because they thought he would do well due to his experience in athletics and also because he was their teacher.
They trusted and believed in him because they had seen what he could do on the track, and they wanted that same mentality on the football field.
And he said yes.
It is from Super Strikers where Gwanda Pirates offshot. Today, Super Strikers are no longer just a school team but a Division One team who were scheduled to parade the trophy in the Matabeleland South capital.
Phakamile has a ZIFA foundational coaching certificate.
But his real classroom has always been athletics yet that is exactly what he brought into football.
“Football and athletics are not very different,” said Phakamile.
“In athletics, you need discipline. In football, you need discipline. In athletics, you need fitness. In football, you need fitness. In athletics, you need teamwork in relays. In football, you need teamwork everywhere.
“I just brought what I learned in athletics into football. And the boys responded.”
Nothando Majoni, Manager of Dream Inn, said they will expand their sponsorship and is happy to see the matches played in competitive spirit.
