The power is yours ZPC Kariba

Moffat Mungazi
CAN somebody, please, call the Sheriff; ZPC Kariba have stolen the show during this momentous business hour of the 2014 Castle Lager Premier Soccer League season! After powering to a 2-1 victory over fancied defending champions Dynamos at National Sports Stadium on Saturday in the season’s penultimate game highly billed as a potential title decider, the Premiership debutantes took a quantum leap towards dethroning the reigning champions.

Now, Kauya Katuruturu, as ZPC Kariba are adoringly referred to by their adulating fans, made a huge statement of strong intent to claim the coveted championship accolade from Dynamos with that fine win over them. The Zimbabwe Power Company side will now look at this monumental victory as a conduit to switching on the lights on their path to Premiership glory.

Now holding a two-point advantage over the Glamour Boys, whom they dislodged into second position after playing them out of contention for the biggest honour in domestic soccer, the league title is now ZPC Kariba’s to lose.

They play Dynamos’ sworn enemies CAPS United in last game, in which the Green Machine have only third position to fight for as their best finish this season. While praying that they do not lose to the 2005 league winners to jeopardise their chances of being crowned as champions of local football, ZPC Kariba will also be playing to win this encounter.

And with the way they took the game to DeMbare in the second half, putting them to the sword in the process, the power utility side must be relishing to tackle the final CAPS challenge. On the other hand, Dynamos, who must have never seen this coming, appeared to have already resigned to cruel fate as mirrored by their tearful players Blessing Moyo and Ronald Chitiyo, who cut inconsolable figures when they broke down at the end of last Saturday’s clash.

After relinquishing pole position in that losing cause against an indefatigable opponent also eyeing the crown, DeMbare can now only glare at ZPC Kariba’s gaiety final pace to being coronetted the new kings of Zimbabwean football.

The ZPC Kariba-Dynamos duel was quintessentially an Armageddon battle in the crudest sense of the word. With stakes very high in that intriguing contest, the grandeur of winning the championship in their maiden top-flight league season – a recording-matching feat only rivalling Black Rhinos’ of 30 years ago – will now give the table-toppers extra impetus in their quest to eclipse Dynamos’ glamour, which had endured for the past three successive seasons during which they won the league title.

As they gloat over narrowing DeMbare’s interest in this year’s league championship, ZPC Kariba clutched what remained the rest of the season by the scruff of its neck and effectively took firm control of their destiny and can now settle matters their own way.

They certainly did not harbour the idea of reading another Dynamos success story on the Premiership front and decided to be authors of their own fairytale script.

Saul Chaminuka and his platoon did all that had to be done in order to duly deserve a podium finish in this bruising league championship marathon; from battering the defending champions, not only once, but twice, and sweetly so at a critical juncture of the race where Callisto Pasuwa and his charges had the reputation of rising to the occasion and deliver, to, if they can avoid defeat at the hands of CAPS United in the last game of the season, finishing the entire season unbeaten at home!

Now, with one hand firmly on the trophy, ZPC Kariba’s finest football hour beckons and they are gleefully gliding towards it. They surely cannot miss this date with destiny and it is not a blind date, for the beautiful prize that now awaits them is no longer veiled, but already known to them.

Indeed, the power to win or lose this year’s Castle Lager Premier Soccer League championship is surely yours, ZPC Kariba!