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Ray Bande in Mutare
AFTER etching his name in the annals of the domestic Premiership with a record four successive championships, Callisto Pasuwa is considering taking a brief sabbatical from active coaching and focus on attaining a Uefa licence.

He became the first coach in Zimbabwe to guide a team to four straight championships after leading Dynamos to glory between August 2011 and this year.

Although he has over the years been controversially snubbed for Coach of the Year award, Pasuwa’s efforts have not gone unnoticed by the global football family.

Pasuwa will enter the New Year as one of the top 1 000 rated coaches in the world.

According to the football website www.coachworldranking.com, Pasuwa is the only Zimbabwean coach as he occupies position 849.

During his almost three-and-a-half years at Dynamos, Pasuwa managed to win more than 10 trophies over the period.

He accumulated 475 points while the highest placed coach is Real Madrid’s Carlo Ancelloti on 20 082 points.

Highly-respected Bayern Munich coach Joseph “Pep” Guardiola is second on 14 813 points with Atletico Madrid’s Diego Simeone in third place while Chelsea’s Jose Mourinho is fourth and Arsenal boss Arsene Wenger is in eighth place.

A look at the rankings will point that Pasuwa is the highest placed Zimbabwean coach while the other Zimbabweans who made it on the list are Pasuwa’ friends and former Warriors teammates Kaitano Tembo and William Mugeyi.

Tembo who is the reserve side coach at SuperSport is on 1 078.

The rankings were done by Institute of Football Coaches Statistics a few months before the end of the Zimbabwean Premiership.

Some of the notable coaches from the continent include Bidvest Wits coach Gavin Hunt who is rated 367, SuperSport United’s Gordon Igesund and Kina Phiri of Free State Stars.

Igesund is ranked at 801, with former Malawi coach Phiri at 901.

Despite a largely successfull spell that should help him easily find a job, Pasuwa insists he is not looking for a new base just yet.

The national Under-23 coach surprised many when he indicated that he was walking away from DeMbare and did not renew his contract with the Harare giants, which officially ends today.

Dynamos have since moved in to replace Pasuwa with David Mandigora, who returns to the Harare giants whom he had quit in 2009, just a year after guiding them to a Champions League semi-final slot.

There has been a lot of speculation on Pasuwa’s next destination with some linking the Young Warriors coach with a switch to Triangle, ZPC Kariba or CAPS United.

But the former Zimbabwe international, who has previously worked at Sporting Lions, Kiglon, Highway and Eagles, has revealed that he is not in a hurry to join a new club.

Pasuwa instead revealed that he had set his sights on attaining further coaching knowledge by enrolling for a Uefa coaching licence in Wales or Germany and wants to spend the better part of the first half 2015 building on his capacity and preparing for his dream of eventually attaining a Uefa Pro Licence badge.

The unassuming coach was in Mutare at the weekend to watch young talent that was on display at the Willard Katsande Under-18 Youth tourney.

It also emerged that Pasuwa was one of the top students at the first Caf A Licence course held in Harare in August.

Now after securing a Caf A Licence, Pasuwa wants to travel the path that such coaches like Charles Mhlauri, Kelvin Kaindu, George Mbwando, Bongani Mafu and Kennedy Chihuri have travelled by attaining a Uefa coaching badge.

Pasuwa said he is on the verge of finalising his travelling arrangements to either of the two countries for the Uefa B course and indicated that he had secured a place to undertake the studies in Spain but had failed to do so largely because of the language barrier.

He believes enrolling with a Welsh or German institution will be better for him.

“I am quite confident that I will be able to undergo Uefa B Licence coaching studies in Germany or Wales. It will take about six months for me to complete the course.

“I had secured a place to undertake the Uefa B coaching licence in Spain but I failed to commence studies owing to the language barrier hence the decision to opt for Germany or Wales.

“Yes, things might change but I think this is what I will be doing for the next six months. I am not thinking about joining any local club. At the moment, my mind is preoccupied with preparations for the Uefa licence coaching course,” Pasuwa said.

With Zifa having dissolved the Warriors, Pasuwa has found himself under the spotlight as his Under-23 side has been asked to step in and play in the assignments that would have been for the senior team.

Although he is not looking at joining any club just yet, Pasuwa has already committed himself to trying to guide the Young Warriors to qualification for the African Under-23 Championships and the All-Africa Games.

The Young Warriors will face Swaziland in the preliminary rounds of both the Under-23 Championships and the All-Africa Games with their first assignment scheduled for February 20-22.

Qualification for the Under-23 Championships has an added incentive in that the top three teams from that tournament will secure tickets to the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro in Brazil.

There have also been indications from Zifa that the Young Warriors squad could also represent Zimbabwe at the 2015 Cosafa Cup in South Africa.

But it is the manner in which he turned Dynamos into a dominant force not only in the league but by also winning a number of knock-out tournaments that helped Pasuwa achieve greatness and also win the respect of many critics who doubted his pedigree. Although Dynamos had previously won four straight championships between 1980- 83 in the era of the Super League and Highlanders achieved a similar feat in the Premiership from 1999 to 2002 that was done by different coaches, making Pasuwa’s success story unique.