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Chicken Inn coach Joey Antipas is hoisted in the air by jubilant players and supporters after winning the 2015 Castle Lager Premiership title by beating Harare City 3-1 at Luveve Stadium on Saturday

EVERYONE loves an underdog tale about a little guy who takes on the establishment favourite and wins. Mostly when we look at battles between lopsided parties, we exaggerate the strength of the favourite and we underestimate the strength of the underdog. The 2015 Castle Lager Premier Soccer League championship race proved to us that underdogs’ limitations can force them to be creative.

The pressure was brutal, but Chicken Inn stemmed the tide to claim their maiden PSL title and deny Harare giants Dynamos a chance to claim a record fifth consecutive league championship.

The league title wasn’t supposed to be Chicken Inn’s when we look back to the beginning of the season. The Bulawayo side did not make as much investment as their city neighbours How Mine, who assembled an expensive and experienced outfit that most pundits placed their bets on for the title.

In fact, people questioned Chicken Inn’s credentials and even as they went about winning their weekly games in the first half of the season, there was always a feeling that somehow they would run out of steam and the usual suspects would emerge as champions.

All in all, the difference between Chicken Inn’s winning the league title and other teams seems to have been their coach Joey Antipas. Never has a coach ever had such an immediate and profound impact in the PSL than Antipas. Although this is only his second Premiership title, that Antipas has won the league with unheralded teams makes him a cut above the rest. The majority of coaches that have previously won the league title either achieved it through expensively assembled sides or the big guns, but Antipas has done it with a bunch of average players whose mentality he simply changed into champions. He somehow possesses the ability to impart a sense of self-belief in his teams for them to thrive where the odds are heavily stacked against them.

It made them punch above their weight in every challenge thrown at them with Antipas, who has now proven to be one of the most tactically astute managers in the PSL, setting up victories against teams that miscalculated the threat of his Gamecocks on most occasions.

There was no one in the Chicken Inn team who could be said to be a sure star, but team work and Antipas’ encouragement ensured that they won the title. Who would have thought Chicken Inn would become the first non-Harare team to win the league in nine years? No team outside Harare had won the league since Highlanders lifted the championship in 2006. Instead, Harare giants Dynamos had personalised the PSL championship by winning it a record equalling four consecutive times and were gunning for an unprecedented fifth title in a row.

For the past two seasons, DeMbare had reserved the best for last by literally charging towards the title in the last three or four games of the season and some pundits had predicted a similar charge this year, but Chicken Inn would have none of it.

In most people’s predictions, Chicken Inn was definitely not among the teams that could break Dynamos’ stranglehold on the PSL championship in the second decade of this millennium. Instead, logic suggested that DeMbare’s dominance would be extended and that’s what certainly makes the Gamecocks’ title victory even sweeter.

Dynamos, Highlanders and Caps United are always considered much bigger and dominant clubs and most people think the league title should be tossed around among these sides. But the thing to remember is that Bosso and Makepekepe have not been consistent for about a decade and if the championship did not go to DeMbare,it went to another team. This is where sides like Chicken Inn, which play without much pressure of expectations from a huge army of fans, come in.

Interestingly, Chicken Inn finished sixth last season and were no threat, according to some people. After all, they retained the same players and how Antipas transformed them is impressive. As the season headed into the final weeks, they appeared exhausted.

The Gamecocks had appeared shattered when they drew against Whawha and Tsholotsho as it looked like the title had slipped away with the seemingly healthy gap they had created being reduced and second-placed FC Platinum in with a chance to leapfrog Chicken Inn if they faltered.

Antipas stood shaking his head sadly and biting his lower lip when they drew against Whawha and Tsholotsho, although he never lost belief in his players, whom he praised for their never-say-die spirit for battling to force draws in the two games.

However, his consistent message to his players that it was possible ensured that his team did everything to win. In the match they were crowned league champions against Harare City, the self-belief that had somehow deserted the players in the final games of the season returned and the Gamecocks easily roasted the Sunshine Boys to achieve what most people had not contemplated at the beginning of the season. We say hail to the 2015 Castle Lager PSL champions Chicken Inn.