Tale of three coaches

Robson Sharuko Senior Sports Editor
DEFENDING champions Dynamos start their journey to win the Mbada Diamonds Cup for the third consecutive season, and get the honour to keep the trophy in their cabinet for good, in what would be a milestone achievement to illuminate a Golden Jubilee anniversary season whose celebrations have been muted so far.

CAPS United have a grand opportunity to win a significant piece of silverware, and evoke memories of their glory days as the Cup Kings of Zimbabwe football, and in the process instil hope into their fans that life, as they say, is beginning in the year they have turned 40.

Highlanders are not celebrating any anniversary, having turned 87 this year, but the pressure for silverware has become relentless, in recent months, after the team showed signs of cracking under the intensity of pressure in the league championship race and they have lost five more league games, already this season, than their entire losses for the whole of last year.

Callisto Pasuwa, Taurai Mangwiro and Kelvin Kaindu, the coaches in charge of the Dynamos, CAPS United and Highlanders technical departments, represent the new breed of young coaches, who have taken over the baton passed on by Charles Mhlauri, on a domestic football landscape where the old coaches have been pushed into the shade.

Callisto Pasuwa has been the most successful of the trio, winning back-to-back League and Cup doubles in the past two seasons, and finds himself chasing a unique Triple Peat, winning the League and Cup Double for three straight seasons, something that has never been done by any coach in Zimbabwe’s football history.

He plunges into a third straight Mbada Diamonds Cup campaign in the Lowveld tomorrow, having only conceded just one goal, in eight previous matches in the tournament, when minnows Quelaton scored in a surprise 1-1 draw at Rufaro last year before losing the penalty shoot-out.

CAPS United (twice), Shooting Stars, FC Platinum, Motor Action, Gunners and Monomotapa have all failed to score against Pasuwa’s team in the Mbada Diamonds Cup in the past two seasons.

If the Glamour Boys go on and win the Mbada Diamonds Cup this year, it will be a grand achievement for the club as, for the first time, they will be given a trophy to keep for good in their cabinet.

Mbada Diamonds Corporate Services Executive, George Manyaya, told The Herald yesterday that DeMbare will be given the trophy to keep for good if they can go on and win for a third straight year.

“According to the contract that we signed with the PSL, if a team wins three consecutive titles in the tournament, they can keep the trophy for good,” said Manyaya.

DeMbare’s Golden Jubilee celebrations have been muted so far this year and if they can get such a prized silverware, to keep in their cabinet for good, it will provide the illumination to a year they promised so much, in terms of providing a grand parade to mark the club’s coming of age, but delivered little for their fans.

Success in this year’s Mbada Diamonds Cup will represent another milestone in Pasuwa’s incredible journey since moving into the front-line of coaching by having the courage to take over the hottest seat in Zimbabwean football.

Even the legendary Sunday Chidzambwa, the most successful coach both in Dynamos and Zimbabwe football club history, did not win a Three Peat of League and Cup doubles during his time at the country’s biggest football club.

Pasuwa told The Herald two weeks ago that his immediate mission was to keep alive DeMbare’s winning run, in terms of their success in the big tournaments and the league championship, and while winning a third League and Cup double would itself be a tougher task, he was determined to try his best.

Interestingly, Pasuwa now highly values the importance of keeping himself in touch with the changes that are happening in the world of coaching and said he was talking to his bosses to send him back to school during the off-season.

He has, in the meantime, been benefiting from his stint with Warriors coach Ian Gorowa and says he has found a lot of joy, and substance, in using the one striker formation.

Which then brings in the question of his reliance on Washington Pakamisa, as his main forward, at a time when the veteran striker has struggled to find the goals that made him an unlikely hero for the DeMbare fans in the first few months of the season.

“Washy is good for us in that he keeps our shape and holds the ball well while also keeping the defenders busy,” said Pasuwa.
For CAPS United, who turned 40 this year, the fans have been cheered by a surprise strong challenge for the league championship in which the Green Machine remains in the running for silverware despite losing a big Harare Derby in their last match.

Mangwiro has given CAPS United the strength to compete but without any silverware this season, all the good work that he has done will not get the kind of appreciation that he deserves.

The Mbada Diamonds Cup provides them with a grand opportunity to win a major piece of silverware for the first time after a lengthy wait and, if the Green Machine players can compete as well as they have done in the league this year, they have a good chance to succeed.

Refreshingly, there are incentives in this tournament which means that there won’t be a repeat of the revolt that saw their players down their tools in a paralysing industrial action that rocked their camp last week.

The expectation from the Green Machine fans would be that their players have their minds firmly on the ball in their tricky tie against a Motor Action side that will be inspired by the fact that they need just about every cent that this tournament’s rich pickings provide.

The neutrals will feel Mangwiro, just like Luke Masomere before him, needs a piece of silverware to cheer his spirit this season after all the trials and tribulations that he went through.

Kaindu’s Bosso have seen their challenge for their first league title in seven years stall in recent weeks and their cause hasn’t in any way been helped by the six losses, so far this season, when they lost only once in the league the whole of last year.

One feels the tension in the Highlanders camp is crying out for just a couple of good results and the Mbada Diamonds Cup represents a grand opportunity for Kelvin Kaindu to take his fans’ thoughts away from the challenges of a league championship campaign that has lost its steam but, remarkably, remains alive.

There is so much to play for for the three young coaches tasked with leading the country’s Big Three Clubs in the Mbada Diamonds Cup and, for Pasuwa, this is an adventure in search for immortality.

For Mangwiro and Kaindu, this tournament represents the breakthrough victory that they badly want, something that could be the turning point in their quest yo turn both the Green Machine and Bosso into successful teams.