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Jairos Tapera

Grace Chingoma Senior Sports Reporter
JAIROS TAPERA is expected to resume his duties as Yadah Stars head coach next week after missing two of the Premiership newboys’ league matches against Bantu Rovers and Chicken Inn.

The veteran coach won’t be on the bench when the Harare side take on the Gamecocks on Saturday, but is expected to return to work next week.

Tapera fell out with the club’s owner, Prophet Walter Magaya, for daring to challenge some of his orders on the personnel who should feature for the team in their matches against Chapungu and Dynamos.

Yadah Stars chairman, Harare lawyer Everson Chatambudza, told our sister newspaper, H-Metro, that Tapera remained part of their technical team.

And sources at Yadah Stars told The Herald yesterday that Tapera will resume his duties next week.

“The coach won’t be in charge on Saturday but the club will comply with the ZIFA requirements that competent technical staff be on the bench, that’s not even a problem,’’ the sources said.

“The focus this week hasn’t been about the coach but to ensure that the players recover from that horror loss in Bulawayo and, as of now, that has been achieved and the results have been magnificent because the body language among the players has been good and morale is high.

“Yes, we have received a lot of criticism but we are okay with that, we thrive under such circumstances and our focus is on the Chicken Inn game and there will be fireworks in that match.

“Today (yesterday) we played Mushowani Stars in a friendly match and the players responded very well and tomorrow we have another friendly match and everything is going according to plan.

“We know that some people are expecting us to receive another hammering against Chicken Inn but football isn’t like that and let’s wait and see.’’

Currently, the junior’s coach Kudakwashe Masaraure, who earned the team’s promotion from Eastern Region Division One last year, is in charge of training the team.

Magaya took responsibility for the big defeat in Bulawayo and said it had nothing to do with the coaches or players.

Instead, he said it was all spiritual and he was happy that his players scored two goals for the first time in a Premiership tie and gave them winning bonuses for that.