peterMehluli Sibanda, Senior Sports Reporter
Chicken Inn . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .(2) 2
Harare City . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0
TWO well executed first half goals at Luveve Stadium in Bulawayo yesterday sent Chicken Inn into the quarter-finals of the Chibuku Super Cup with victory over Harare City in the first round of the country’s most prestigious club competition.
Munashe Pini opened the scoring for the Gamecocks in the 29th minute with the ball ricocheting off the post before going in after an excellent pass from Tafadzwa Kutinyu. Four minutes later, an immaculate exchange of passes between Denzel Khumalo and Malvern Gaki saw the latter produce a brilliant strike into the roof of the net to beat Kelvin Shangwa in goals for Harare City.
Joey Antipas, the Chicken Inn coach felt that they deserved the win since they took their chances in the first half before controlling the proceedings in the second stanza.
“I thought we deserved it, the first half we were especially after about 15 minutes we started dominating the game, created the chances, took our chances, that’s cup football, if you don’t put away your chances then you struggle the next thing you end up in the penalty shootout or you go down so credit to the guys for coming up with a good first half and some good goals,’’ said Antipas.
His Harare City counterpart Taurai Mangwiro was pained by the defeat considering that the Sunshine City Boys have won the Chibuku Super Cup over the years.
“Very painful considering that Harare City over the years has enjoyed some fair share of success in the Chibuku Super Cup. As a coach I’ve won it twice, once with Harare City and then with Triangle so we fancied our chances,’’ remarked Mangwiro.
According to the Harare City coach, they came to Bulawayo with a desire to compensate for the 1-0 defeat they suffered at the hands of the same opponents at the same venue in a league encounter exactly a week ago yesterday.
“We wanted to win to atone for our poor showing in the league but somehow it wasn’t to be and the damage I thought it was done in the first half, that’s where we lost it.”
Mangwiro was not pleased with the referee Thabani Bamala as the coach was of the view that there was no foul committed since Chicken Inn players did not appeal leading to the Gamecocks first goal. From the ensuing free kick, Chicken Inn scored their first goal.
“It’s small little things that make a difference in the game, you saw me being bitter about what I thought was not a foul and it’s what gave Chicken Inn the ascendency, from the resultant restart they go on to score and it upset our rhythm, at the end of the day you want to look at that as the turning point of the match because up until then we were doing fairly well,’’ fumed Mangwiro.
The coach, whose team is languishing at the wrong end of the table in the league seems to have accepted that he might be sacked soon but bemoaned how referees who make glaring errors still get appointed to handle matches in the Premier Soccer League.
Bamala was the centre of attention when Caps United defeated Bulawayo City 1-0 in a league encounter at the National Sports Stadium.
Teams
Chicken Inn: D Bernard, P Bernard, M Whata (Muza 74 mins), N Ketala, V Moyo, S Mhlanga (Chinda 83 mins), T Kutinyu (Dzingai 63 mins), X Ndlovu, D Khumalo (Amidu 74 mins), M Gaki (Charamba 83 mins), M Pini
Harare City: K Shangwa, D Dzvinyai, I Zambezi, T Mugoniwa (Stanley Masukuta 46 mins) D Mudadi, D Masukuta, O Tafira (Mandinyenya 79 mins) Z Bizeki, T Mukono (Muvirimi 66 mins), V Mukutairi (Ziocha 46 mins), T January
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Online Reporter