By Eddie Chikamhi
CAPS United coach Lloyd Chitembwe will miss the Green Machine’s two weeks of preparations for the CAF Champions League preliminary round as he has gone back to school to enhance his credentials.
The Premiership Coach of the Year was among a group of coaches who enrolled for the CAF A Coaching Licence at the ZIFA Village on Monday.
With the course expected to run until January 23, the former midfielder has delegated duties to one of his lieutenants Fungai ‘Tostao’ Kwashi, who has been taking the players through their routines in the early build-up to the clash with Lesotho champions Lioli scheduled for next month.
Local coaches are pushing to boost their credentials ahead of the 2017 season following the new regulations made by ZIFA that only those with the CAF A Licence will be allowed to sit on the bench in the Premiership beginning this year.
Chitembwe, who won his first championship as coach last season with CAPS United, was a holder of a CAF B Licence he acquired in 2014.
But the CAF A badge will be the mandatory minimum requirement for all head coaches in the new season, according to the ZIFA regulations.
The first module for the course will run from January 9 to January 23 with the final part slated from February 13 to 27.
In between the modules, Makepekepe are set to travel to Lesotho for the first leg of their preliminary round tie against Lioli on the weekend of February 10-12 and then come back home for the return match a week later.
The Green Machine begun their pre-season last week with players taking a fitness and conditioning programme after returning from the month-long festive holidays.
Although it is still early days, assistant coach Kwashi said he has been impressed by the enthusiasm shown by the players.
He said Makepekepe needed at least two more weeks to work on their physique and thereafter they would look to engage in the pre-season friendly matches.
“We are just building on the endurance work, trying to get the body back into motion. The guys have been good so far and it’s encouraging they are even willing to go out of their way and do extras.
“It’s a good thing. Slowly we will get there. It’s like work in progress. We are building it up slowly from the foundation going up,” said Kwashi.
After a slow start, Makepekepe had most of their players in attendance yesterday with notable absentees being senior players like Abba Amidu and Leonard Tsipa who had taken advantage of the break to venture into job hunting missions outside the borders.
Tsipa is set for a move to Tanzania.
Makepekepe appear to have resigned to the thought of losing defender Stephen Makatuka to South Africa second tier AmaZulu. Makatuka had been registered for the Champions League before he decided to cross the border.
“I don’t want to say much about the transfer issues, but all I can say is we wish anyone who wants to leave the club well.
“CAPS United is a big brand. Like what the president (Farai Jere) and the coach Lloyd Chitembwe always say we don’t stand in any player’s way if they want to go to what they think is a better league or club. It’s been part of the CAPS United culture, every year we lose players, but we keep surviving.
“Last year we lost about eight players and the new guys who came in won the league. So we wish Makatuka the best. He has been a great soldier for the club.
“Same as Leonard. He was our top scorer last year. He played a big part for the club, he helped us to win the league. We wish him well too,” said Kwashi.
New signings Ronald Chitiyo, Last Sithole and Prosper Chigumba also appear to be settling in well in the Green Machine family.
“We don’t want to put pressure on the new guys. We have welcomed them well and all that we have been hammering on them is that we work hard here. So far we are happy with them and we will keep on pushing them so that we get the best out of them,” said Kwashi.
After retaining the bulk of their squad, Makepekepe will be looking to continue from where they left off last year.
“We wouldn’t want to go ahead of ourselves, but targets, yes, we have set targets within the organisation.
Some of them we cannot at this moment talk about them in the press, but it is our hope that we do better than what we did last year. The Herald
