adminMtulisi Mafa Sports Correspondent
NOBODY in our polarised football landscape will have the guts to accuse the local scribes of misdirecting the game’s fans with daily dosages of a build-up to a Harare Derby that promises everything.
It’s a special weekend for those football fans who have long called the capital home and, in the Derby, find a reason to fight, brag and mock each other.
This isn’t sport’s version of insanity like that farce in Las Vegas where boxing fans were reduced to a gallery of rogues watching a mismatch involving Floyd Mayweather and Conor McGregor.
It might have made millions, but it was a farce.
It was a reality show and, for some of us who want real stuff, the Derby represents all that — blood-and-thunder.
Oh dear, what a way to start the new month!
Dynamos, a dominating presence in the league in recent months, have surprisingly punched above their weight in this campaign, especially considering they are a side dominated by many players even their fans didn’t know.
A run through Dynamos’ team sheet at the start of the year would leave you wondering if they were a Lower Division side, but that is the kind of material Lloyd Mutasa loves to work with.
Now, they are a mighty force and could be champions this season.
They were so magnificent in their 6-0 destruction of the How Mine in Bulawayo last week, never mind the narrative that the home side’s regulars boycotted.
Their return to the capital last Sunday was met with a glowing admiration of their efforts by any appreciative bumper crowd that gave this latter version of “Kidznet” a deafening standing ovation as they took to the field against Yadah.
And, the boys delivered against a tough opposition, which is great.
CAPS United are champions, by the way, and for a while after their Champions League campaign they conveyed no sense of direction or purpose, but they have suddenly found their feet and have been conducting their business with conviction.
It was easy to write them off, the Champions League seemed to take its toll on them, a mutiny in their dressing room over bonuses and the departure of their key personnel in Ronald Chitiyo and Abbas Amidu didn’t paint a beautiful picture.
But Lloyd Chitembwe and a group of fans who, besides annoying the Forestry Commission by their deforestation habits, always sing themselves hoarse for the club, the champions had to find their soul.
Their 3-0 destruction of Ngezi Platinum sent alarm bells ringing across the league and that it came against the backdrop of a victory over FC Platinum only made it very special.
But how can they compete without their best player this season, Ronald Pfumbidzai, whose skills have taken him, as we all expected, into South Africa?
It’s a pity that our coaches haven’t seen that Pfumbidzai is better than Onismor Bhasera in that position.
Without him, CAPS United are set to be limping and if you doubt that, then ask yourself why the champions fired blanks, for the first time in six games, against Chapungu when Ronnie didn’t feature?
They needed him for this derby, they needed his brilliance to counter the threat of Dynamos’ man-of-the-moment Ocean Mushure.
Mushure seems to have exhausted his life time supply of bad luck, and being viewed as an ordinary player, and he is now dominating the back pages of our newspapers, for good reason too.
That he has been the best player in the Premiership isn’t questionable and the only question, probably, is how long can Dynamos hold on to him.
Some say his age hasn’t helped his cause to move to a foreign club, but this is a man who can give a team four to five good years.
That he almost signed for CAPS United will hurt the Green Machine faithful, especially if he can score a goal of the kind of purity that we saw at Rufaro on Wednesday.
But, don’t get excited all you Glamour Boys.
These are the champions and they are playing in their backyard where losing is allergic to them and, in case you forgot, remember that incredible comeback from 0-3 down in the last Derby?
The Derby@40 — what a show in store for us football fans.
Online Reporter