Zimpapers Logo

Ricky Zililo Senior Sports Reporter
PERFECTIONIST Zambian coach Kelvin Kaindu is an unhappy man at How Mine despite his team going on a four-match unbeaten run and occupying third place on the Castle Lager Premiership league table with eight points. How Mine laboured to a 2-0 win over Triangle at the weekend and trail leaders FC Platinum by four points.

Instead of being happy with the weekend’s victory, Kaindu was mad at his players. “I feel I would rather lose a game, but see what I’m coaching. I’m the kind of coach who wants to see what I’m coaching. Even the guys know that I’m cross. It’s the first time that I couldn’t talk about football; I was cross and I told them what they were doing isn’t football,” said Kaindu in his post-match interview.

Kuda Musharu and Godfrey Nguwodzawo were on target for the gold miners against Kaindu’s former paymasters. Kaindu said his team was taking long to adapt to his style and the defenders gave away too many loose balls.

“Honestly we thank God that we managed to come up with maximum points, and we managed to get two goals and kept a clean sheet, but I’m very disappointed with the way we played in the first half,” said Kaindu.

“We’re adjusting slowly in terms of the way we want to play, but I think there’s a plus. We may be struggling, but we keep on picking points slowly and I believe by the time we adjust and everybody adapts to the way we want to play, we may be a different team. But all in all I’m a bit disappointed with the way we play.

“The process is taking long; we’re supposed to be moving to coaching the midfield and strikers, but we’re still labouring with the defenders. Sometimes as a coach you’ve to exercise patience, considering where the team is coming from. It’s good to maintain the unbeaten record and still look forward to the next game. We’re going to Mutare (City Rovers), who’ve been giving away points to other teams and my hope is that the game doesn’t bring complacency to us,” he said.

Kaindu seems to have brought his Midas touch to How Mine and has restored faith in the players, whose morale had hit rock bottom towards the end of last season.

His team has done well, and has the most points out of the five Bulawayo clubs that include champions Chicken Inn, Highlanders, Tsholotsho and Bulawayo City.

How Mine were the only Bulawayo team to collect maximum points at the weekend. Chicken Inn suffered their first defeat of the season, going down 0-1 away to ZPC Kariba, to slide into fifth place.

Highlanders, who had assistant referee Nyarai Chirwa to thank for a point after she erroneously ruled out Mkhokheli Dube’s effort offside, drew 1-1 with Bulawayo City.

Bosso played second fiddle to the league debutants and it was difficult to pick what formation or style they were playing. A horrendous show aptly describes Highlanders’ performance and the team now seems to thrive on kick and run tactics.

City must be commended for their good build-ups, which they started from the back. They were far much better than Highlanders in midfield, but still struggled to thread through that killer pass for their strikers.

Tsholotsho FC picked up what their coach Lizwe Sweswe described as a vital away point in a 1-1 draw against Chapungu in Gweru.

Results
Saturday: Harare City 4-1 Hwange, Chapungu 1-1 Tsholotsho FC, How Mine 2-0 Triangle United, ZPC Kariba 1-0 Chicken Inn

Sunday: Bulawayo City 1-1 Highlanders,

Dynamos 0 – 1 Caps United

Yesterday: Ngezi Platinum 0-1 FC Platinum,

Border Strikers 0-1 Mutare City