Methembe beat Dynamos, home and away in 2006, for good measure, and it means a lot to the Bosso family to beat the old enemy

sharukoAT times, watching Dynamos crush Highlanders on Saturday, evoked memories of an explosive Mike Tyson knocking out Michael Spinks, in the first round, in their undisputed world heavyweight boxing championship fight in 1998.The then Mayor of Atlantic City, James Usry, called it “the greatest sporting event in the history of the planet,” a showdown featuring two unbeaten heavyweight boxers, in the prime of their careers.

It was the richest boxing contest ever staged, at that time, and many analysts predicted a close fight, and a tough test for Iron Mike’s brute force against the artistic Spinks who had impressed many neutrals with his victory over Larry Holmes — not once but twice.

Every hotel within a 30-mile radius of the Broadwalk Hall, where the fight was staged, was fully booked for the weekend of the fight, ringside tickets cost US$1 500, almost double the normal prices for such seats for a heavyweight fight.

An incredible US$340 million gambling revenue was generated by Atlantic City and US$11 million was gambled in the Trump Plaza Hotel casino just on the night of the fight.

But the show, inside the ring, lasted just 91 seconds.

A left vicious hook to the body did a lot of damage and opened Spinks’ defence, the inevitable left to the head followed and he went down, got up, and walked into a booming right that put him down again and, this time, there was no getting up for Spinks.
It was over, in a flash, and Spinks never fought again.

There are some similarities between that mega fight and the TM Pick n Pay Cup showdown between Dynamos and Highlanders at the National Sports Stadium last Saturday.

It was the richest one-off football game ever held on Zimbabwean soil, with US$110 000 in prize money for the two teams and with more than US$300 000 being injected into this one game, it attracted a huge crowd and featured two big rivals who were supposed to fight for their constituency.

But, just like Michael Spinks in Atlantic City quarter of a century ago, Highlanders did not show up for the big showdown, a scrambled opener from Simba Sithole, not their Simba Sithole, who had just been rejected by a Super Diski club and making his debut in this match, but the other Simba Sithole, himself with a history of rejection by Super Diski clubs, opened the floodgates.

With their confidence shattered, the inevitable second goal followed, and the identity of the scorer had a name that their team manager had scribbled on his team sheet, just a few hours earlier, the only complication being that this Simba Sithole was not their Simba Sithole and the goals he was scoring were for the cause of the eternal enemy.

Like Spinks, Bosso went down, but they were not out, and after the interval their fragility down the left channel, something that Callisto Pasuwa has exploited with ruthless efficiency in the past two games between the two sides, was crudely exposed once again, an avenue as wide as Samora Machel without the traffic at midnight, opened for Simba Sithole, again not their Simba Sithole, and a cross, a connection by Mutuma, another goal.

Felix Chindugwe provided the response for a comeback that was as unlikely as expecting snow to suddenly blanket the playing pitch at the giant stadium on that warm and sunny spring afternoon.

But Bosso’s frailty at the back, down those unguarded flanks, and a repeated suicidal experiment with the offside trap, even when the lack of pace of the heart of their defence meant this was a high risk experiment, kept giving Dynamos opportunities, including a number of one-on-ones with Ariel Sibanda which they kept blowing away, thanks to a combination of some woeful shooting and some wonderful goalkeeping.

But the knock-out blow was always coming, that it came wasn’t a surprise, the manner it came didn’t even surprise the watching cast, and the identity of the goalscorer, too, wasn’t a surprise as Washington Pakamisa, scorer of the only goal when Bosso were beaten in a league match at the same ground, rolled home the fourth goal.

Unlike Spinks, Bosso will fight again, of course not against their nemesis in the league this year, and given their struggles against an opponent they have failed to beat in the league in eight years, this should provide a bit of comfort, if not opening a window of hope, and who knows, maybe at the end of the season, Kelvin Kaindu could probably be a league championship winning coach.

KAINDU, TSHISA AND A CONSTITUENCY BURSTING WITH FURY

Ezra Tshisa Sibanda has been vicious in his analysis of Kaindu, saying it loud and clear that the Zambian has been a flop of monumental proportions in his spell as coach of his beloved Highlanders and, if he was the one calling the shots, he would have long given the gaffer the axe to go back home and join Tennant Chilumba in that league that Fabrice Mbimba left behind because he felt he needed to take his game a step further.

Tshisa is not alone and there were a lot of angry Bosso voices in the VIP Enclosure of the National Sports Stadium last Saturday and the majority of them were convinced that Kaindu had outlived his usefulness, had overstayed his welcome, had abused their hospitality and trust and loyalty and while Bosso had improved, under his tutelage, they hadn’t done enough to justify an investment in a foreign coach.

Highlanders have finished second, in the last two years, beaten only to the league championship by an inferior goal difference but that shouldn’t provide Kaindu with a blanket of comfort because being the bridesmaids, for a team like Bosso, isn’t good enough, has never been good enough, will never be good enough because this was never an institution that was built to be second best.

They have a reason to yearn for greatness because, after the turn of the millennium, they have stood toe-to-toe with Dynamos, with very little separating the two titans, they all have four league titles since we changed the digit of the year that we are in from one to two.

That in two big games, against their biggest rivals, Highlanders have been caught out down the right channel, with devastating consequences, gives people like Ezra the ammunition they need to argue that Kaindu, when he is thrust into pressure situations, is a poor reader of the game and, in those situations, his flock of sheep find themselves without a shepherd.

Maybe, that explains Bosso’s implosion, when the championship was there for the taking, in that 0-3 defeat by Monomotapa, which dramatically changed the race, at Rufaro in 2012, and the four-goal loss at the hands of Harare City, when a draw would have been enough to make them champions, in the dying stages of last year’s marathon. Kaindu’s alibi is that he wasn’t around when Bosso crashed against City, having flown to England that week for his badge, but it’s only a coward of a head coach who will say that he wasn’t there,

when the team is his and in today’s high-tech world you can coach from a distance, simply because the result went the other way.

Take a close look at Silas Songani’s goal against Bosso at Rufaro last year, where he picks the ball, down the right channel, check the frailty of his opponents down that side, watch how Mapuranga tries to come in and cover for his fullback, wingback, leftback or whatever you call him, watch how he is left in a heap by Songani’s cheeky body swerve, and after that, the coast gets cleared and a goal is inevitable.

Take a close look at Dynamos’ goal at Barbourfields this year, when their attack is switched down the Bosso right channel, look at those open spaces, the right-back is nowhere to be seen as Simba Sithole, not their Simba Sithole but the other Simba Sithole, controls the ball and looks for options.

And, just like in that game against Harare City, poor Mapuranga is sucked in to try and cover for the shortcomings of his right-back, rightwingback, fullback or whatever you call him, betrayed by a system that exposes them to such rapid attacks, once again he is left in a heap by some trickery, the coast is cleared, the ball is swung in and Mutuma scrambles it home. I was asking my colleagues the other day at GamePlan, a Monday night television football magazine programme on ZTV whose viewership is ballooning every week, where is the Bosso rightback, as we reviewed the tape from Barbourfields, and he was nowhere in sight.

Then, in the goalmouth scramble, just as Mutuma hammers the ball home, you then see the Bosso right-back appearing on the picture, in that goal area, and this is a man who was supposed to have been trying to stop Sithole, wide on the flanks, from bringing in the cross, supposed to have been preventing his centre-back from being exposed.

If this happened once, then one can argue that the flaw is with the defender, that wing-back, but when it happened again in a big match against Harare City, in what effectively cost Bosso the league championship, and happened again in the game against CAPS United at the National Sports Stadium, and happened again in the big game against Dynamos on Saturday, then it’s not about the players but the system. Therein, lies Kaindu’s culpability and that Bosso find themselves being caught, again and again by a system that makes them extremely vulnerable on the wings when the other team turns over defence into counter attack, is something that the Zambian coach should consider as his Achilles Heel.

“I have to deal with that position once and for all. I have tried all the players in that position, including the ones that we bought during the just-ended transfer window but all of them seem to be uncomfortable,” Kaindu told The Standard after the loss on Saturday.

“Eric Mudzingwa has been better in that position but you saw how we conceded all those three goals from that side.”

It’s the system, Kelvin, and not the manpower, which is the problem, and while Bosso, defensively as a unit are not that bad, they have the second best record in the championship, it’s the way they lose their shape and their discipline, and leaves them badly exposed to teams that attack down the wings, which has been their Achilles Heel.

A coach is as good as his results, that is the bottom line, and while Kelvin’s results have been something that can be described as impressive, the point remains that he was hired to win championships, something that Rahman Gumbo, at a lower cost did, not once but twice, something that Methembe, at a lower cost, also did in 2006.

Methembe beat Dynamos, home and away in 2006, for good measure, and as Kelvin might have seen in recent weeks, it means a lot to the Bosso family to beat the old enemy and when you turn into their punching bag, as has become the case in his era, people like Ezra Tshisa Sibanda have a reason to go ballistic and question his pedigree.

IS KAINDU THE MAIN PROBLEM, REALLY?

Since Methembe inspired Bosso to a 2-0 win in the reverse league tie at Barbourfields in 2006, the last time High but you saw how we conceded all those three goals from that side.”

Highlanders beat Dynamos in the league, SIX Bosso coaches have TRIED, in a period spread over eight years and involving 16 matches, and FAILED to defeat the old enemy in a league match.

Methembe failed in 2007, Madinda Ndlovu came along and failed, Reuben Tsengwa, Mohammed Fathi, Mr Cooper Masuku and Kaindu have all gone into the trenches, against the old enemy, and come short.

Only one of them, Methembe, won the championship in 2006 when Bosso finished 19 points clear of Dynamos.

In the past eight years, when Bosso have failed to beat DeMbare, the Glamour Boys have had FOUR coaches, all of them their former sons — David Mandigora, Elvis Chiweshe, Lloyd Mutasa and Callisto Pasuwa — and two of them have won the championship, with one winning it three times, while the other reached the semi-finals of the Champions League.

Bosso players rarely strike, it’s taboo, while Dynamos players usually strike, but while the former look like a bastion of stability, and the later look like a haven of chaos, there is something that the Glamour Boys have been doing right, in the past eight years, which has given them the edge over their big rivals.

Three years ago, Kenny Mubaiwa took a gamble with Pasuwa, then a greenhorn coach who had lived in the shadow of Mutasa, and threw him into the deep end, hoping that, freed from the boring routine of always reporting to someone, he would excel and become his own man in the same special way that Guardiola had done. That Pasuwa is a coaching genius of our time is something that hasn’t been widely acknowledged by a domestic football family that is obsessed with the showmen with loud mouths and very little substance, with coaches who find comfort in controversy, with coaches who are at home in the nightclubs, with coaches who love publicity more than they love their jobs. The quite men of our world, like Pasuwa, men who prefer to spend their Saturdays with their pastor rather than with those who specialise in downing Johnnie Walkers at pool parties at certain houses that look like boats, aren’t given the respect that they deserve because we are quick to say, in our street language, kuti mabharanzi, madofo.

Because Pasuwa is from Unit O in Chitungwiza, we tend to say that he can’t be a genius, they don’t breed coaching thoroughbreds in those parts of our country, they only breed musicians out there like the late “Mr Chitungwiza” John Chibadura, the late Fanuel “System” Tazvida, the late David Chiyangwa “Mr Bulk”, the late Paul Mpofu, the late Cephas Mashakada, Nicholas Zakaria and Alick Macheso.

But, in the last three years, the big difference between Dynamos and the other teams, has been all about the genius of Pasuwa and while he has been found wanting on the continent, you cannot deny him the crown that he has been the King of the domestic scene, a coach who could, with time, walk into the elite company of the likes of Charles Mhlauri and Sunday Chidzambwa.

To be successful, for such a long period, at a club that tests him week in and week out, where success is the password for his car to continue getting access to their run-down training ground at Zimphos (as Mafero Mafero we even have a better training ground at our club Alex), where he is as good as his last result, where the people are allergic to failure, amid all the volatility that usually accompanies life at Dynamos, is phenomenal and you have to take a bow to Pasuwa.

Maybe, when you look at it, it’s not that Kaindu is not very good but, probably, he has been unlucky to work at a time when his main rival has been this genius called Pasuwa who gives away very little.

Not even his smile.

AFTER THE STORM, CAPS WILL HOPE THERE IS CALM

It has been a very tough week for CAPS United with the Green Machine dominating the back pages, once again, for the wrong reasons and things came to a head at Mandava last Saturday where they were leaked half-a-dozen goals against FC Platinum.

Hopefully, there will be some sunshine today, when they play FC Platinum again, for the sake of their fans, who have been standing by their team in these tough times, who have waited nine years for a league championship and who have watched their main rivals dominate the domestic landscape.

CAPS United need a long-term solution to their challenges and there is only one — Twine Phiri has to open his club to investment, bring in investors who can pour in the money in return for a shareholding and people will see the difference this will make.

QUOTE OF THE WEEK — NDUMISO GUMEDE

“People who do not play a significant monetary role (in the club) should not say so-and-so must go.  The people who are members and not just the general supporters have that mandate,” Gumede, the Highlanders chief executive, said this week after the loss to DeMbare.

“We respect all our supporters and their support, but they must leave the decision to the office bearers that they elected.”

To God Be The Glory!
Come on United!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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