GREEN GRASS OF HOME

MWANJALIRobson Sharuko Senior Sports Editor
THIS time last year, Lloyd Chitembwe’s career appeared to have disintegrated into ruins, destroyed by challenges that come with a tough job whose sheer brutality had shattered the dreams and reputations of many before him, who had dared to join the ranks of top-flight football coaching.

Staggering in the darkness and battling the inevitable psychological demons that come with being rejected by a community he had called his family for more than two decades, which now dubbed him a failure, Chitembwe was walking alone as he carried a heavy load of so many questions in his head, with very few answers to provide the comfort his tormented soul badly desired.

Somehow, he had turned from being CAPS United’s most decorated footballer of all-time, with three league championship medals in his cabinet, to this outcast — the combustible Warrior that time had forgotten — and such was the extent of his humiliation that he was even being told he wasn’t good enough to coach an unfashionable Division One side called Starbill.

And, as he languished in the football wilderness, his fiercest critics had already started writing the epitaph on his coaching tombstone: “Here lies Lloyd Chitembwe, as combative a Green Machine as they will ever come but who, crucially, failed dismally to handle the transition from being a very good player to becoming a successful top-flight coach.”

Even when that hopeless Northern Irishman, a gold-digger-disguised-as-a-football coach, Sean Connor, landed at the Green Machine in circumstances more controversial than Donald Trump’s success story that has shaken the Republican establishment in United States politics, Chitembwe had to suffer the humiliation of being told to assist a man who knew virtually nothing about football, a tourist on a safari, who was just here to soak in the sunshine.

Chitembwe’s name was fast disappearing from the radar, occasionally being mentioned when the Harare Derby came along, when the journalists talked about the events of April 12, 2009, when Mushekwi’s double strike won the game for CAPS United, and occasionally the football writers would write about him, just in passing, hidden somewhere in their newspaper articles, as an historical reference to the capital’s biggest football battle.

But how had it all gone so wrong for Chitembwe?

After all, his development as a coach appeared to be well on course, especially on that unforgettable afternoon on April 12, 2009, when Mushekwi’s lightning double-strike powered the Green Machine to a deserved 2-0 victory in the Harare Derby, the very game where Charles Mhlauri had distinguished himself as a gaffer CAPS United could trust as he led them to back-to-back league titles.

But, as they say, one swallow doesn’t necessarily mean that the summer is here and there was some frustrating inconsistency with that CAPS United team, highlighted by their 1-2 loss in the game that followed their Harare Derby success story, and further losses to Kiglon, Shooting Stars, Eagles and Bantu Rovers, including a three-game losing streak, provoked a flurry of questions among the fans as to whether Chitembwe was the right man for the job.

Although CAPS United recovered well, to finish the season with a flourish, thanks largely to Mushekwi’s consistency in front of goal, which included a hattrick in the victory over Kiglon in the reverse fixture, a third-place finish for the Green Machine — 10 points behind eventual champions Gunners — appeared to be a season that hadn’t gone to expectations.

Especially given that this was a star-studded team which would provide the bulk of the players who won the 2009 COSAFA Cup on home soul, with Method Mwanjali being the inspirational captain while Mushekwi showed his class with a double strike in that final against Zambia, which the Warriors won 3-1 before a packed Rufaro.

With patience wearing thin at the Green Machine, it was probably just a question of time before Chitembwe was removed from his role as the head coach, but whether that was the right decision, did not appear to be supported by the results as CAPS United lost their way under the coaches who came and went, and only once, in 2014, did they finish as high as third in the championship race.

In sharp contrast, their biggest rivals Dynamos were reaping huge rewards for keeping faith in their coach, Callisto Pasuwa, who delivered four straight league titles for the Glamour Boys.

In August last year, after CAPS United had been held by Dongo Sawmill and Tsholotsho and lost to Chapungu, the club’s owner, Farai Jere, decided to bring back Chitembwe and, on September 1, the coach was unveiled at the Green Machine for his latest romance with the club.

A home goalless draw against Buffaloes, in Chitembwe’s homecoming game had some questioning whether this was the right move, but he soon silenced the dissenting voices with an impressive 1-0 away victory over Hwange at the Colliery and sealed his latest love affair with the fans with an impressive 3-1 destruction of Highlanders in his third game.

A 1-2 loss to ZPC Kariba at Nyamhunga might have derailed the progress but, so far, it has turned out to be the only league game Chitembwe has lost since his return and his current record will show that he has won SEVEN of the 13 matches he has played, drawn FIVE and lost just ONCE.

He has not lost, in 180 minutes, against the old enemy Dynamos, his men battling to secure a 1-1 draw at Rufaro last year, and returning to beat their biggest rivals 1-0 in the Harare Derby on Sunday.

Chitembwe took his men to Mandava, in the heat of the championship race when Norman Mapeza and his troops were fighting for the title, and forced a draw and Chapungu and Harare City, who had built a reputation as the Green Machine bogey sides, have been beaten.

CAPS United are unbeaten at home, in SEVEN league games, since Chitembwe’s returned to lead them, winning their last four straight home matches leading into tomorrow’s tie against Border Strikers, and four times — against Bosso, How Mine, WhaWha and Chapungu — they have scored three times in each game in their fortress at the giant stadium.

If CAPS United avoid defeat in the next five games, Chitembwe will match Charles Mhlauri’s impressive record of just one defeat in 18 games, between the end of 2003 and into the heart of the 2004 season when Highlanders came to the giant stadium and handed that Green Machine their only loss of the championship race.

“Obviously, the feeling is good but it’s not about an individual,” Chitembwe says.

“It’s about the team. I’m happy for the boys. I’m happy for the team and those supporters. It’s always good to see them happy.

“It’s about doing what you are supposed to.”

Of course, that’s what he is paid for, but for a coach that the domestic Premiership was beginning to forget, just eight months ago, to make such a huge comeback, and count Highlanders and Dynamos among his victims, has been nothing short of sensational.

He might not be getting a lot of credit in this cruel game from those who had already started writing about him as a spent-force, a man consumed by his shortcomings, but the statistics show he is doing a good job and the Green Machine is working in full throttle again.

Of course, life has a funny way of reminding us that we are just mere mortals, and history can repeat itself in the most cruel way possible should CAPS United, after the emotions and heroics of their first Derby win in seven years, fall at the hands of Border Strikers tomorrow.

Seven years ago, it was Monomotapa who beat them, seven days after their last Derby win, and given that Chitembwe and Method Mwanjali are part of both stories, they should know that this brutal game — just like life — has a painful way of reminding us that we are not immortals.

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