Champions who can’t score

By Robson Sharuko

Critics of the domestic Premiership, who claim that the top-flight league has lost the glitter of its golden past, will certainly get more ammunition after champions Chicken Inn failed to score more goals, this season, than Moses Chunga’s post-independence record tally in 1986.

But the Gamecocks are not alone. It’s the SEVENTH time, in the past 10 years, that the champions of the domestic Premiership have failed to score more goals than Chunga’s record-breaking tally of 46 goals, 19 years ago, when the Zimbabwe football legend destroyed defences in a landmark season for him.

That an entire team, good enough to be crowned champions of this country, fails to score more goals than just one individual, will certainly be used, by those who say that our top-flight league is losing its glitter, to justify their claims.

And that only one team, during the 2015 Castle Lager Premiership campaign, FC Platinum, scored more goals than Chunga did, when he set the benchmark in 1986, is embarrassing for a league that should represent excellence on the domestic football scene.

WhaWha and Dongo, who were relegated at the end of the season, scored a combined 35 goals and that means that the more than 30 players they used this season failed, together, to score more goals than those that Chunga scored, on his own, 19 years ago.

In fact, WhaWha (17 goals in 30 matches) and Dongo (18 goals in 30 matches) scored a combined 35 goals this season and that is 11 goals shy of the number of goals that Chunga scored in that landmark season when he was leading the Dynamos attack as a mere 21-year-old.

Buffaloes and Tsholotsho scored a combined 44 goals and that, too, falls short of the 46 goals that the former Zimbabwe skipper scored in 1986.

CAPS United, who scored 79 goals en-route to winning the league championship in 2004, scored only 29 goals this season, with seven of those goals coming in their last three matches (three against How Mine, three against WhaWha and one against FC Platinum.

The former Cup Kings, who have been a resurgent force under the guidance of Lloyd Chitembwe and take on league champions Chicken Inn in a semi-final showdown at Barbourfields this weekend, scored 17 fewer goals, this season, than Chunga did in 1986.

Their bitter rivals Dynamos, who won four straight league titles before they were dethroned by Chicken Inn this season, scored 36 goals in the league this year, 10 short of Chunga’s record haul 19 years ago, when the man they now call Bambo was leading their star-studded attack.

Incredibly, DeMbare’s 36 league goals this season was an improvement given that the Glamour Boys scored 34 goals in the league championship race last year, on their way to winning a fourth straight crown and matching the achievements of the Dynamos Class of 1980-1983 which also won four straight league titles.

Highlanders, the only other team to win four straight league titles on the domestic front when they began ruling the scene at the turn of the millennium, have not been saints either, scoring just 37 goals this season, nine short of the number of goals that Chunga scored, on his own, back in 1986.

Bosso even provided the Golden Boot winner, with Knox Mtizwa scoring 14 goals this season, which means that the rest of his teammates only contributed 23 goals all season in the championship race.

Triangle, a team that began with a bang this season as they destroyed opponents at will, before fading in the championship race, ended their campaign with 46 goals, matching the number of goals that Chunga scored during the 1986 season.

Exactly half the number of teams in the domestic Premiership this season scored fewer goals than the number of games that they played. Last year, no team even managed to score more goals than Chunga’s record personal haul, in 1986, with only ZPC Kariba, who finished second in the race after losing their final game of the season to CAPS United, the only club to score more than 40 goals.

Only four times, in the past 10 years, have the champions of this country scored more goals than Chunga did way back in 1986. Dynamos scored 58 goals on their way to winning the league title in 2012, Motor Action scored 52 goals in 2010, Gunners scored 47 goals in 2009, and that is just one goal more than Chunga’s tally, while Highlanders scored 56 goals in 2006.

And Chunga doesn’t even hold the record for the number of goals an individual has scored in the domestic Premiership. Back in 1971, the later Peter ‘Thunderboots” Nyama scored 62 goals. Today, even the champions of our top-flight league can’t score more than 46 goals.

“Times have changed, of course, but let’s not forget that it’s the goals that the people want to see in football, a game without goals is dull and it does not appeal to the supporters,” Chunga told The Herald.

“It’s an area that our football needs to work on, not only in the Premier League or Division One leagues but even our national teams because we have been failing to get goals and that is a concern.” The Herald