Harare City to Fire Decorated Coach Mawiwi
The coach of the year has been given up to Sunday to win the game against Dynamos or leave the club he helped to get promotion into the top league
HARARE — Zimbabwe’s reigning coach of the year Bigboy Mawiwi is likely to lose his job as Liverpool coach Brendan Rodgers could smile all the way to the bank this weekend. This is the guessing game that Zimbabwean football fans are playing as they brace for the Castle Lager Premier Soccer League matches and epic Barclays Premier League clash between top of the table and second-placed Chelsea. Harare City coach Mawiwi faces the boot after this weekend’s PSL matches. The reigning Zimbabwe coach of the year has been given up to Sunday to win the game against Dynamos or leave the club he helped to get promotion into the top league in 2012. Harare City, who finished joint third on 54 points with champions Dynamos and runners up Highlanders, have lost all their first three games of the season including a 1-0 defeat to newly promoted ZPC Kariba. Mawiwi knows the threat he is under but the coach is unfazed in facing Zimbabwe’s most popular football team. He says his mind is focused not on the goings-on in the boardroom but on the game at hand. Dynamos on their part have not won a game at the National Sports Stadium since relocating to the 65,000 seater stadium at the beginning of the season. The team lost their first league game 1-0 against newly promoted ZPC Kariba and followed this up with a 3-0 post match penalty defeat at the hands of FC Platinum in the final of the Independence Trophy. But striker Washington Pakamisa, who has been under heavy criticism for failing to convert easy scoring chances, says he will not have any mercy for Mawiwi and his Harare City side. Soon after the defeat against FC Platinum, Pakamisa promised to make amends for his misses in the next Dynamos home game. Leaders Highlanders who are on seven points face Hwange in a top of the table clash at Barbourfields Stadium. Both teams are on seven points but the talk of the football fraternity remains newly promoted ZPC Kariba who are joint top with Highlanders and Hwange. The Kariba side are playing away to Buffaloes and striker Artwell Nyamhiwa who scored the goals that sank both Dynamos and Harare City says people should not underestimate the new boys. The season is still in its infancy but any points picked now play a crucial role in determining the outcome at the end of the season. In that respect Caps United coach Taurayi Mangwiro is hoping for three points at Mandava against FC Platinum, who have just fired assistant coach Masimba Dinyero. Mangwiro, whose team has also been missing too many chances, is looking forward that the papers of top scoring Malawian striker Ishmael Tindwa would have been sorted out in time for him to play against the ‘Money Bags’. Fans are also waiting with bated breath on the outcome of the game between the Reds of Liverpool and the Blues of Chelsea. The whole of this week, the talk of the football family has been centered on that game. In bars, in the streets, and in homes, debate has been on whether Chelsea will be able to stop the Liverpool juggernaut from an early league title celebration after 24 years of waiting. Brenda Rodgers’ Liverpool lead Jose Mourinho’s Blues by five points with three games remaining but fans still think the war is still far from over until it is really over. Some, however, are offering odds that the Blues will not withstand the Reds’ firepower especially at Anfield where Liverpool have proved invincible. Should Liverpool lose and Manchester City win against Crystal Palace this will throw the title race wide open with any of the top three teams with a realistic chance of taking the title that Manchester United have surrendered so meekly. The failure by the Red Devils claimed the scalp of manager David Moyes, who was sacked during the course of the week.