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MARK MATHE

Grace Chingoma Senior Sports Reporter
THE future of CAPS United coach Mark Mathe and his technical team is now uncertain after the Green Machine plunged to defeat in their latest Castle Lager Premiership tie at Ascot on Sunday. The former league champions have picked only two points from their last three matches and this has exerted pressure on the club leadership with fans calling for changes in the technical team.

Reports yesterday indicated that Makepekepe could bring back Lloyd Chitembwe to take over as head coach with former Zimbabwe international, Kennedy Nagoli, joining the technical team. Yesterday, Mathe said he expected to remain in charge and was focussing on the future.

“We will take this time to refresh, do post-mortem, evaluations, and look at the positives and the negatives,” said Mathe. “But we are not going to relax so that when the league restarts we should win matches not just one match. “We are at time where the bottom teams want to survive and the mid-table is chasing to finish in a better position and the top teams are gunning for the top post.

“It is mentally taxing and needs a lot of character to achieve this. In Gweru, we didn’t play well in the first half and I thought we conceded two soft goals we could have avoided but in the second half, we made tactical changes but our opponents were also aggressive. “We tried our best but it wasn’t to be.

“But there are nine games to go and we remain positive and our players should have more character.” His Highlanders counterpart, Bongani Mafu, is also in a tricky position after his team went down to Chicken Inn at Barbourfields. Last week Bosso chief executive, Ndumiso Gumede, said Mafu had to win against the log leaders to save his job. Dynamos coach Tonderai Ndiraya said fatigue appears to be catching up with his men who are in contention for a fifth straight league title.

“Today it was much better than the Tsholotsho game but still you could see some of the guys were not themselves, about three quarters of the team lacked some urgency,” said Ndiraya. FC Platinum coach Norman Mapeza, whose team will meet Dynamos the next weekend after the international break, believes the Warriors’ match has come as a blessing in disguise.

“There is nothing we can do, we have to respect the national teams and also considering that we have gone for four games without rest in a space of few days, sometimes it is taxing,” said Mapeza. “I think it is a blessing a disguise to have this break and we will use it to recharge our batteries and it also gives us time for players who would be having knocks to recover.

“I have been talking to the players about being consistent, maintaining momentum and we are taking each game as it comes and not putting ourselves under pressure. “We are now in the second quarter and all the teams are fighting for points. People can talk of playing good football but sometimes what is important is to collect points and just looking for maximum points.

“The Triangle match was a difficult game, they are playing good football, they came in strongly in the second half and were attacking but in football sometimes you just need luck. “We were lucky because it was a bad day we would have the lost the match by two or three goals.”

Mapeza said his men will train until Thursday before regrouping on Monday.