Castle Lager Zimbabwe PSL 2023-2024 Matchday 1 Results
Hwange 0-1 Dynamos, Simba Bhora 1-2 FC Platinum, Sheasham 0-0 Chicken Inn, Bulawayo Chiefs 1-1 Ngezi Platinum, Highlanders 0-0 ZPC Kariba, CAPS United 2-0 Manica Diamonds, Triangle United 1-0 Herentals, Yadah 1-0 GreenFuel, and Cranborne Bullets 0-1 Black Rhinos
TAWANDA CHARI
The Castle Premier Soccer League kickstarted on Saturday and
we love our local football. As chaotic and unorthodox as it is, we need it to
exist. It is ours after all and the most entertaining form of football is end
to end chaos that keeps you on the edge of your seat. A low scoring week with
only 11 goals scored across the competition on matchday 1.
New Boys
Simba FC head coach Tonderai Ndiraya believes lack of concentration can better explain the way his side lost to FC Platinum as he said in the post match press conference. Sitting back for 70% of the game against a possession heavy side like Mapeza’s Madamburo tends to have results like that more often than not.
Juan Mutudza bagged a late brace in to help the defending champions rally back from a goal down to beat new boys Simba Bhora at the National Sports Stadium on Saturday. Mapeza’s side is aiming at 13 of the possible 15 points available in the first 5 games of the season. If anyone can achieve that, it’s probably FC Platinum.
Sheasham got a point off The Gamecocks as Yadah had the better of Greenfuel on Monday.
CAPS United 2-0 Manica Diamonds
CAPS United’s Joseph Thulani got a straight red card for a bad tackle in the final moments of their win over Manica Diamonds. Apart from the send off, Thulani had an excellent game. Scoring in the early moments of the first half from a rebound. Blessing Sarupinda sealed off the scoring late in the first half and that was enough for Makepekepe to announce their intent this season.
Although spectators agree Manica were the better team in terms of possession and threat, results are king. It remains to be seen if Makepekepe will sustain a winning run and if Manica Diamonds will turn their good football into results. Manica had the same predicament last season.
Hwange 0 – 1 Dynamos
A chunk of a scene at Barbourfiers on Saturday, Dynamos hit the woodwork several times and fans at Mpilo End ran onto the pitch, took Hwange Goalie’s towel and burnt it on the belief that it had juju. Dealing with football variance and unpredictability can be brutal. Perhaps belief in charms is an easy way to cope than comprehending that sometimes it just never goes your way.
3 minutes after the towel burning incident, Dynamos scored the only goal of the match to the game. It took a moment of magic from Denver Mukamba to tee up striker Tinashe Makanda who scored a priceless goal for the Glamour Boys. Mukamba only needed 5 minutes to make impact in a game Dynamos should probably have scored 3+ on a different day.
Season Predictions
Understandably clubs have to do short term (1-2 year) projects to navigate the socioeconomic environment at the expense of footballing quality. There’s a huge dearth of and access to information for the sport. Minimal television coverage, zero access to match footage post game and no data to perform in depth analysis of players and officials alike. That means the standard scouting report is not met. Squad building becomes suboptima and that also translates to the national team.
There is really limited information to make accurate predictions except FC Platinum probably wins the league . They have been consistent with their style of play, recruitment and long term squad building.
There’s only so much one can be able to gather watching live. Over 1000 actions occur in a single match. That transition to a better quality league has to happen soon however. For the sake of the sport.
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