adminRay Bande Senior Sports Reporter
MUTARE junior football coaching icon – Timothy ‘Sicho’ Masachi – has finally come out of his cocoon revealing that he did not turn down Mutare City Rovers, but the club’s emissary only verbally offered him a job and up until now he is still waiting for an invitation to the negotiating table, as pledged.
A hugely reserved character, who has etched a talent-nurturer status over the years, as he groomed some of most of the successful players from Mutare among the current crop playing in the ABSA Premiership, poured his heart out in an interview with this newspaper early this week.
Flanked by his long time and trusted manager, James Muhala, Coach Sicho, as he is fondly referred to in soccer circles in Sakubva, said he felt used and abused by a system that gives more respect to soccer coaches from the capital and elsewhere ahead of local coaches.
Masachi, probably the only coach in the history of Zimbabwean soccer in post independence era to sit on the technical bench of a top flight league club all alone without any assistant for more than 15 league matches, was reacting to allegations by Mutare City Rovers that he did not show interest to working under Kenny ‘Bokande’ Kachara as an assistant.
“I am not happy with the way I was portrayed in the public eye. I appeared as if I am not man enough to make decisions on my own. Yes, (James) Muahala is my manager and that is very normal in today’s world.
“I am only shocked that it is good for Kalisto Pasuwa to have Gibson Mahachi as his manager, but it is bad for Timothy Masachi to have James Muhala as his manager.
“The headline – Sicho snubs Mutare City Rovers – was misleading. They are actually the ones who snubbed me.
Their coach Kenny Kachara is the one who approached me a few days before Christmas. He asked me whether I wanted to be the head coach, an offer that I instantly dismissed.
“I told him that it could not be fair for City Rovers to refuse him a chance to lead the team in the Premiership. I made it clear to him that there are several positions within the technical set up of a team that I can come in and add value apart from being head coach. He said he would come back to me after discussing with the team management.
Until now no one has given me any feedback. Kachara himself is yet to come back to me,” said Masachi.
Asked whether he would be ready to take up the post of assistant coach at Rovers under Bokande, Masachi said: “I am more than ready.
For your own information I am actually hunting for a job. I value the job that I do in training juniors at La Sakubva, but I cannot turn down an offer to join a Premiership club technical department because that is how one grows up in their coaching career. I even made it clear to Kachara that I am ready to work as his assistant.”
Masachi went for more than 15 serious Premiership league matches calling the shots and conducting training all by himself Buffaloes during the club’s turbulent times.
During that spell, coach Sicho not only helped the army outfit escape relegation during the 2013 season, but also became the first coach to win a league match against unbeaten Dynamos at Sakubva Stadium.
Images of the diminutive Sakubva gaffer being tossed in the air by a group of blissful players as wild celebrations engulfed Sakubva on a sunny Sunday afternoon are still fresh in the minds of many a Buffaloes faithful.
However, Masachi was later dropped from the Buffaloes technical department.
When contacted for comment, City Rovers coach, Kachara first said he was conducting a training session and could only entertain this reporter later.
However, his mobile was later unreachable.
Mutare City Rovers’ spokesperson, Clayton Masekesa, said Masachi could be reacting to the pressure he is now being subjected to by his colleagues and soccer fans in Mutare.
“I think the coach is reacting to the pressure he is now being subjected to by his colleagues and soccer fans in Mutare. He is aware that all I said in the previous article is true. He kept playing hide and seek with the people entrusted with the duty of negotiating with him,” Masekesa said.
Online Reporter