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Farai Jere

Harare Bureau
OUTGOING champions Caps United have congratulated rivals FC Platinum for winning the Castle Lager Premier Soccer League title and offered some free advice to the Zvishavane miners to be shrewd on the transfer market as they seek to bolster their squad ahead of next year’s Champions League.

Caps United president Farai Jere reckoned that FC Platinum have the capacity to be good representatives of Zimbabwean football on the continent and follow the trend set by his side in this year’s edition of the prestigious knock-out tournament.

The Green Machine reached the group stages of the Champions League.

However, Jere said in as much as the African adventure feeling is a good one, the new champions should not repeat some of the mistakes that CAPS United made along the way in the tournament.

Jere acknowledged that in as much as it is important to beef-up one’s squad in preparation for the African Safari, it also important not to get swept away in the euphoria of playing Champions League football.

CAPS United picked a trail of good results along the way including massive wins over continental club heavyweights TP Mazembe, Egyptian giants Zamalek and USM Alger of Algeria.

The campaign was also hugely successful with CAPS United stars Ronald “Rooney” Chitiyo, Abbas Amidu and Ronald Pfumbidzai securing contracts outside the country due to their Champions League exploits.

Although the participation in the Champions League is a bigger platform with huge rewards, Jere believes there is need to maintain “coolness” to a certain degree.

“You cannot buy all the best players playing in the league once you become champions. Yes, you need to boost the squad for the gruelling Champions League at the same time analysing which areas do need beefing-up, which ones are okay and should be left like that.

“Look at what we did, we ended up having too many players on each position, good players for that matter and we were forced to loan out some of the players because we had signed too many players prior to winning the league, which in the end created some problems for us,” said Jere.