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Tadious Manyepo Sports Reporter

CAPS United have one of the oldest teams in the Castle Lager Premier Soccer League.

They will not do away with recruiting experienced players entirely, at least in the near future.

They have suffered this season, not because they have a bad squad but their staff wasn’t ideally motivated.

But, they have shown greatness, even in adversity, thanks to their legendary coach Lloyd Chitembwe who has managed to keep the squad together amid all the grumblings and groans.

Club president, Farai Jere, has also been resolute, ensuring the players, though with consistent delays, still get paid in a league his club is the only individually-owned.

Makepekepe have battled on and off the field of play and at one point in the marathon looked precariously demotion-bound.

They have recovered but they, without any doubt, punched way below their weight.

And they have devised new ways to revamp the team ahead of next season.

Makepekepe are inviting academies and lower league teams whom they are playing against in practice matches while identifying talented youngsters they are taking aboard for next year.

Technical director Nelson Matongorere revealed the club has decided to follow this direction with the aim of freshening up the squad.

They have since recruited two youngsters, Crucial Mandaza and Temptation Koni, who they took from Guruve Academy, from the same initiative.

“Look, today (yesterday) we are playing the same team from Guruve where we got Crucial (Mandaza) and Temptation (Koni) so it also becomes part of talent identification.

“We have also played several lower division teams and you will see next season that we would be having a pool of talented youngsters in the team,” said Matongorere.

“When you look for talent, it’s not a matter of going to big teams and look for off-loaded players. We look for these players from teams in areas like Guruve as well as in tertiary institutions where I believe most talented players are. I always watch tertiary games. That is where talented players are.”

Matongorere said the club also makes it a point to have these practice games so as to afford players, who would have been dropped from match-day team, a chance to stay at par with the rest of the squad in terms of fitness.

“Every week, especially on Fridays, we have a friendly game with different teams, especially from the lower leagues. We have 30 registered players in the team and all of them can’t be in the match-day squad of 18 players.

“So we organise these matches so that we can afford those who would have been dropped from the squad a chance to maintain game fitness as the games will be full 90 minutes training games. That means they would be at par with the rest of the team at any given time.

“Look, we had to come up with a solid recruitment plan which we are implementing right now.”

Matongorere was yesterday in charge of the team in the absence of coach Chitembwe who was attending to personal issues.

The Green Machine face Chicken Inn tomorrow at Luveve.

CAPS United are enjoying a purple patch in the league, having picked up seven points in their last three games.

“The preparatory week has been a bit shorter given we are playing on Saturday but we made sure we covered all the required aspects. I think we have posted an 85 percent success rate in our last three games against Triangle (win), Cranborne (win) and FC Platinum (draw).

“We can fancy our chances of picking three points against Chicken Inn, given the form we have just picked.

“We don’t want to play second fiddle to Chicken Inn and we have put in strategies to outmatch them and it will take Joey Antipas and his team to be very alert in terms of football intelligence.

“We managed to note our defensive shortcomings in the game against FC Platinum. It is the reason we conceded two goals in the first half and we have rectified those mistakes.

“Now we have done our homework and we are ready to go.”