Title race to produce champions with the lowest points tally

By Robson Sharuko

The 2013 Premiership race has captured the imagination of the nation and such has been the intensity it’s likely to produce the champions with the lowest points tally since the domestic top-flight league embraced the three-point system for a win 19 years ago.

The Top Three teams — Dynamos, Harare City and Highlanders — dropped points, in tricky assignments, over the weekend with Bosso being held a surprise draw against a Motor Action side that has only won three games in 27 matches, and lost more than half those games, with 14 defeats.

The weekend results means that Dynamos and Harare City need to win all their remaining three matches for them to ensure that the winners of this year’s championship race won’t be remembered as the ones who picked up the lowest points tally in the era of the modern Premiership.

If that happens, the two teams will end with 58 points, matching the lowest points tally that a team has needed to win the league title in the past two decades, but with DeMbare facing a tricky away tie against Chicken Inn in their penultimate match and Harare City facing Highlanders and CAPS United in two of their last three matches, it’s easier said than done.

Should DeMbare win their remaining three matches, they will finish 11 points adrift of the points tally they harvested last season (69) to win the championship by virtue of a superior goal difference after Highlanders also reached 69 points.

Where Bosso lost just one game, last season, but still finished second, the Bulawayo giants have already lost seven games this year, with three matches still to play, but despite that massive difference in lost matches, they still find themselves sitting just one point behind the leaders.

Last year, the Glamour Boys won 21 games, on their way to be champions, but even if they were to win their last three matches, Callisto Pasuwa and his men will still fall five games short, in terms of matches won.

If either Dynamos or Harare City win their last three games, and end the season on 58 points, they would have dropped 32 points, which is equivalent to losing 10 matches, and this means a team can lose a third of its matches but still be champions.

CAPS United assistant coach, Brenna Msiska, claims that this shows the league has become competitive and the team that is crowned champions have to work for it rather than just powering to glory, without facing intense competition to reach the Promised Land.

“It says something if we have a photo-finish featuring not only two teams but three or four,” Msiska told The Herald yesterday.

“This is the competition that we need because it makes everything exciting. It is healthy for the league.”

CAPS United have already lost eight games, about a third of the matches they have played this season, but they still find themselves just four points adrift of the leaders with a chance to be crowned champions if they win their remaining matches and the leaders lose their way.

Others, though, feel this year’s championship race shows that the better teams in the league last year, like Dynamos and Highlanders, have become poorer this season and that explains why, in the final month of the season, there is no player who has stood head-and-shoulders above the rest the way Denver Mukamba imposed himself last season.

Only two teams, Highlanders and Triangle, have scored more than 40 goals, after 27 games of the season, and the Glamour Boys have only scored one more goal than a Buffaloes team that is stuck in 11th place on the table.

The Mighty Bulls, who scored against Bosso at Rufaro on Sunday, had only scored 10 goals in 26 matches leading to that game.

No team has ever won the league championship with less than 58 points, since the domestic Premiership embraced the three-points-for-a-win system in 1994, but that could happen this season unless either Dynamos or Harare City win their remaining three league matches.

Those in the Glamour Boys camp, who believe in the supernatural will feel that a 58-point mark means their team will be champions again this season, because on the two previous occasions that Dynamos have ended the season, with such a points tally, they have been crowned champions.

And, on both occasions, as could be the case this year if both DeMbare and Harare City win their remaining three matches, the Harare giants have won the marathon by virtue of a superior goal difference.

In 1995, Sunday Chidzambwa and his men were given a good run for their money by a plucky and colourful Blackpool side that took the race into the final weekend of the championship, with both teams level on points.

DeMbare completed the race with 58 points, the highest possible number of points they could harvest if they win their last three matches this season, with Blackpool also ending the marathon on 58 points but the Glamour Boys were crowned champions after having scored more goals than their rivals.

There was a controversial touch to the championship race after the league chiefs decided to give Dynamos the benefit of playing their final match against Black Rhinos a day after Blackpool had completed their fixtures, which appeared to give the Glamour Boys an unfair advantage as they now knew how many goals they needed to score to be champions.

Two years ago, Dynamos also ended the season with 58 points, and just as was the case in 1995, another colourful team also completed their campaign on 58 points with FC Platinum now occupying the position that Blackpool were in 16 years earlier.

Again, the Glamour Boys were crowned champions, by virtue of a superior goal difference, and with Dynamos and Harare City set to reach 58 points, if they win their three final matches, the race could be decided on goal difference.

Callisto Pasuwa and his men currently enjoy a five-goal advantage, in terms of goal difference, on Harare City and with Bigboy Mawiwi and his men set to face Bosso and Makepekepe in two of their last three matches, it’s very unlikely that even if they were to win all of them, they will win by huge margins to improve their goal difference in a very big way.

But anything can happen, in what has been a very unpredictable race in which no team has really imposed itself, and even FC Platinum, who have lost eight matches, which is two games less than what Black Rhinos, who are in the final relegation slot have lost, can still win this league championship.

Past Champions

1994 – Dynamos (62 points)

1995 – Dynamos (58 points)

1996 – CAPS United (71 points)

1997 – Dynamos (68 points)

1998/1999 – Highlanders (72 points)

2000 – Highlanders (78 points, 38 game season)

2001 – Highlanders (62 points)

2002 – Highlanders (72 points)

2003 – Amazulu (56 points, 26 game season)

2004 – CAPS United (79 points)

2005 – CAPS United (58 points)

2006 – Highlanders (65 points)

2007 – Dynamos (64 points)

2008 – Monomotapa (60 points)

2009 – Gunners (61 points)

2010 – Motor Action (66 points)

2011 – Dynamos (58 points)

2012 – Dynamos (69 points)

The Herald