Where is the fresh attacking talent?

CAPS United’s quest for a first league title in more than a decade is being spearheaded, upfront, by a footballer who will be 35, on his next birthday, while Highlanders have also invested in a 35-year-old forward to try and win a first championship in 10 years.

Dynamos have also brought a veteran, Jacob Muzokomba, who claims he is 29 which suggests that he was 17 when he first emerged at Lancashire Steel in 2004.

Defending champions, Chicken Inn, have also turned to another thirty-something, Obadiah Tarumbwa, who turns 31 on November 25, having been part of the top-flight battles since the turn of the millennium.

Leonard Tsipa, who turns 35 on January 25, has scored four goals and is the leading goalscorer at CAPS United this season in which the Green Machine have battled to keep themselves among the leaders in the championship race.

Tsipa has been playing in the domestic Premiership for 17 years now, having first emerged at the Green Machine in 1999, before a short stint at Serbian side FK Kavor during the 2002 /2003 season.

He returned home in 2003 to rejoin CAPS United and was part of the Green Machine team which won back-to-back league titles under coach Charles Mhlauri in 2004 and 2005.

In 2008, Tsipa crossed the Great Divide to join bitter rivals Dynamos and spent a year at the Glamour Boys before being wooed back to CAPS United and then moving to Gunners in 2011 as he appeared to be bidding farewell, to the big stage and big boys, after years in the trenches fighting in their corner.

But a surprise reunion with CAPS United followed and Tsipa now finds himself leading the Green Machine forward line, just as was the case 12 years ago when he was playing in the team that won the league championship, with his four league goals the best return by a striker from his club this season.

Tsipa is the same age as Matema, whom Highlanders turned to hoping that he will provide the fireworks upfront, although he has struggled to score goals at Bosso since his return from South Africa.

Matema turned 35 on June 19 and returned to Bosso after having had stints in South Africa where he played for Orlando Pirates between 2007 and 2009 before a spell in the lower divisions at Witbank Aces.

The striker first emerged in the domestic Premiership at Kambuzuma in 2004 and after scoring a hattrick for Bosso, in a dominant display of power and precision, he caught the attention of Pirates.

But Matema didn’t explode in Johannesburg and after just two years was shipped out of the Soweto giants and he ended up playing at the unfashionable Witbank Aces.

At the beginning of the year he returned home and somehow, made a big impression at Bosso who signed him, but he has failed to deliver the goals that coach Elroy Akbay had been hoping for.

The Dutchman once again blamed his strikers on Saturday after Bosso lost for the fourth time, in five games, when they fell 0-1 to ZPC Kariba whose winner was scored by another ageless forward, Limited Chikafa.

Last year, Bosso had invested in Tarumbwa, who turns 31 on November 25, hoping that the nomadic forward would fire them to championship glory.

Tarumbwa first emerged at Bosso at the turn of the millennium and remained at Highlanders for eight years, making 84 appearances and scoring 32 goals.

He left for Belgium where he joined Cercle Brugge in 2008 before returning home the following year to play for Bantu Rovers.

Soon, he was on the move again, arriving in Cyprus where he played for lower division teams Enos Neon Paralimni, APOP Kinyras and Ermis Aradippous before surfacing in Kenya in 2013 after signing for Sofapaka.

The following year, he moved to South African side, University of Pretoria, before returning home to rejoin Highlanders and then moving to Chicken Inn at the beginning of the year.

Another veteran forward, who is still in the trenches, is Jacob Muzokomba, who claims he is 29.

Muzokomba was this year signed by Dynamos, in a surprise move, where he is yet to score for the Glamour Boys whose shortcomings in front of goal have been a cause for concern for their fans.

The big striker played for Lancashire Steel from 2004 and then joined Bosso, Buffaloes, Hardbody and even played in Swaziland.

But, as the veterans keep hanging on, where the fresh attacking talent that one would have expected to have emerged in the domestic Premiership by now?

“You shouldn’t forget that we lost a generation of our young and exciting forwards, including some who never played in the Premiership like Knowledge Musona, who moved to South Africa after 2010,” said one coach.

“Khama Billiat is another of those exciting forwards although it is interesting to note that, when Lloyd Chitembwe fielded him, there were some CAPS United fans who were questioning what the coach was trying to do and they even booed Khama in one or two matches.

“Of course, we could have produced more, but Simba Nhivi was promising until we took him to South Africa when he was not yet ready and the rejection he suffered there, not once, but twice, has seemingly affected him for good and he has never been the same again.” The Herald