By Paul Mundandi
Despite losing star midfielder Ronald Chitiyo to rivals CAPS United, Harare City are not losing sleep and believe they have enough depth within their ranks to mount a strong challenge for the 2017 championship.
Chitiyo whose deal with City had expired opted to play for champions CAPS United with the prospects of playing in the Champions League proving one of the forces that pulled the former Dynamos man to the green half of the capital.
The Sunshine Boys, however, insist they are not worried about the player’s departure for CAPS United with club vice-chairman Stanley Ndemera indicating that they have enough depth at their disposal.
Harare City will be under the guidance of Warriors assistant coach Mkhuphali Masuku for their 2017 campaign.
Masuku, who takes over from Moses Chunga will, however, only join the Sunshine Boys in the later stages of their pre-season training as he would have to travel to Gabon on national duty with the Warriors.
Warriors goalkeepers’ coach Richard Tswatswa, now the team manager at Harare City, will also be travelling to Gabon.
Harare City are also looking to add a few more faces to their current squad before the transfer window closes.
Ndemera, however, reckoned that their player base is solid enough to help Masuku target for a better finish than the ninth place they achieved in 2016.
“We are solid at Harare City and we are not losing sleep following the departure of Chitiyo.
“We are happy that he has given a chance to other players. We are looking at committed players. We have a team in Division One which has good players and we are going to promote some of them.
“We have a strong Under-20 team which could have gone on to win the COSAFA Cup,” Ndemera said.
Ndemera said Harare City had changed their thrust with focus now being turned to greenhorns and not ‘high profile names’.
“We are no longer going for players with high profile names because at the end of the day they will not yield anything for us. They are mercenaries and they have love for other clubs,” said Ndemera.
Ndemera said they also had a strong youth development programme being spearheaded by Elvis Chiweshe.
“Our objective is to have a number of players who can represent Zimbabwe at any level that is why we have a number of junior teams. We have a number of players who are going to get promoted to the first team.
“Our junior policy has already yielded results and the nation has seen the likes of Tatenda (Tumba) who promises to have a bright future.
“We have all the infrastructure and we have the schools in Harare which are producing the players,” said Ndemera
Harare City has already appointed Mike ‘Dread’ Madzivanyika to be in charge of the pre-season training during the period Masuku will be away at the Nations Cup.
“We have Mike (Madzivanyika) to be in charge of the team with Witness (Munkuli) responsible for the goalkeepers. Elvis (Chiweshe) will also assist the three. Richard (Tswatswa) is no longer the goalkeepers coach at City, but he is now the team manager.” The Herald
