Zimpapers Logo

Bulgarian champions PFC Litex Lovech – a modest provincial football club that has been transformed into a force by the millions of one of the richest men in Eastern Europe.
The Dynamos playmaker will miss tomorrow’s Castle Lager Premiership tie against Monomotapa at Rufaro and, in the event that he passes the test, might have made his swansong appearance for the Glamour Boys, with that man-of-the-match performance, against Masvingo United last Monday.

The Bulgarian champions, who played in the Uefa Champions League this season and lost in the qualifying rounds after a 1-4 defeat at the hands of Debereceni of Hungary, have been tracking Archie since their scouts spotted him during an Ajax Cape Town training camp in Holland last year. The scouts were at the 2011 Chan finals in Sudan where Gutu scored his first goal for the Warriors in the 1-0 win over Niger.

Gutu’s manager Calvin Nyazema confirmed to The Herald last night that the rising midfield star was likely to spend three weeks undergoing trials at the Bulgarian champions.
“Archie got a 20-day visa for his stay in Bulgaria for the trials and, hopefully, all will go according to plan and he will make the grade, which will be a big step forward in his career,” said Nyazema.

“The Bulgarians have been tracking him for a long time and they have now made up their minds that they need to have a closer look at him in their backyard.
“He should be arriving in Bulgaria tomorrow (today) and, from there, it should be business throughout and it’s up to him to show his real value and all we can do is to wish him all the success.”

Gutu has developed rapidly in the past few months and broken into the Warriors and turned himself into one of the star players at Dynamos.
On Monday he turned on a vintage midfield show, which was a throwback to the good old days when the domestic Premiership was an arena that showcased ball-playing artists, as he inspired DeMbare to a 5-1 victory over Masvingo United.

He is also a leading member of the Young Warriors who are battling to qualify for the All-Africa Games in Mozambique in September and will now take on South Africa in a Battle of Limpopo showdown for the ticket to Maputo.
Gutu, a poor boy from Mbare who lost both parents while he was still very young, passed the grade at Ajax Cape Town last year.

But complications arose, related to questions over his age, and the deal collapsed and Gutu returned home and started to rebuild his career at Dynamos.
He initially struggled to break into the Glamour Boys’ first team, as coach Elvis Chiweshe chose to stick with his tried-and-tested crew in the countdown to an explosive league championship race, but soon began to find space and started making a big impression.

This year, with the arrival of coach Lloyd Mutasa who has a passion for emerging talent, coupled with the departure of a number of seasoned players from the Glamour Boys camp, Gutu became one of the key players.

There was controversy when Nyazema ruled that the midfielder could not play for Dynamos, in their Champions League opener against MC Alger, with the manager saying it was risky to throw the midfielder into battle when he did not have a contract with DeMbare.

But the two parties sorted out their differences and Gutu impressed, on his return into the fold, with some eye-catching performances. He is certain to be named by Warriors’ coach Norman Mapeza in his squad for the big 2012 Nations Cup qualifier against Mali in Harare in four weeks time.

This means that the next time we are likely to see Gutu back in action, on the local scene, will be in the colours of the Warriors in that Nations Cup qualifier, which the team needs to win to avoid instant elimination from the qualifying process.

Gutu will be based in Lovech, one of the oldest towns in Bulgaria, based in the north east of the country, about 150 km away from the capital Sofia.
It has a population of about 36 000 people and PFC Litex Lovech, the local football team, plays its home matches at the Lovech Stadium, which has a capacity of 7 050 fans, but is modern enough to be allowed to host Uefa games.

The football club was originally founded as Hisaraya, in 1921, and has changed its names along the way to Karpachev, Osam, Lex and Lovech.
In June 1999, the club was bought by Grisha Ganchev, a wealthy businessman with interests in petroleum, automobiles and agriculture, who is a native of Lovech, and he renamed it Litex, the same identity shared by his holding company Litex Commerce.

With money pouring into the club, the team was able to sign some of the best players in the country and from foreign nations and Litex became the first provincial football team in Bulgaria to win back-to-back league titles in ‘97/’98 and ‘98/’99.

They won the league championship again last season and they have never finished below fifth in the league since 1998.
The club featured in the old Uefa Cup in 2005, 2006, 2007 and 2008 and in the Europa Cup last year before taking part in the Champions League this season.

It has its fair share of critics, including Levski FC owner Todor Batkov, who publicly claimed that Litex were a “shame to Bulgarian football” because they used their wealth to influence referees to favour them in the domestic league.

In 2007 the club signed a sponsorship deal with Bulgarian mobile operator Globul and became the first football team, in the country, to brand its own mobile phone game, Litex Football.
Gutu will have to do very well to make the grade as the club has five Brazilians, inclusing four who play in midfield – Tom, Sandrinho, Doka and Nenem.

They also have two Serbians on their books, including club captain and midfield powerhouse, Nebojsa Jelenkovic.
There is also a Frenchman, a player from Bosnia-Herzegovina and one from Slovenia, in a multi-cultural team that showcases the financial muscle of its ambitious owner.
Last season they won the league championship with a 12-point cushion over giants CSKA Sofia.