HARARE – Dominic Chungwa netted a brace as CAPS United denied Ngezi Platinum Stars a chance to return to the top of the Castle Lager Premiership table with a convincing 3-0 victory yesterday.
For United, Chungwa has now struck a rich vein of form and has now scored four goals in United’s last four matches as the defending league champions are now seemingly on a revival mission to rescue what was slowly turning out to be one of the worst title defences in recent seasons.
Forward John Zhuwawo got the other goal for the Harare side as they rose up the log into 13th place on the log table with 24 points from 17 matches.
Crucially, for Makepekepe, they still have five matches in hand and yesterday’s win was a strong reminder to their rivals that they still have intentions of defending their title.
Lloyd Chitembwe’s charges, who came into the match on the heels of another impressive 2-1 victory over FC Platinum in midweek, were full value for their win and could have easily added to the score sheet had they buried some of the gilt-edged chances they created.
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“It was a ... fantastic performance from the whole team,” CAPS assistant coach Tostao Kwashi said.
“We’ve had a bad patch and I am happy we are over it now. It was a good message to everyone but also credit to Ngezi, they are not a bad side, they are a good side with a good coach in Tonderai Ndiraya. We can’t take away what he is doing at the club.
“We are the reigning champions and the pressure we have is within ourselves. We don’t want to talk a lot about the championship, what we want to talk about is our next game against Black Rhinos.
“As it is right now, it’s all about taking it step by step and going up the ladder.”
CAPS overcame an earlier setback which saw defender Stephen Makatuka being admitted to hospital after falling sick on the eve of the game.
Ngezi were unsettled by an aggressive approach from the home side, with the opening goal coming after 30 minutes when Chungwa headed home a Phineas Bamusi cross from the left side.
Two minutes later, the home side were 2-0 up when Zhuwawo doubled the lead with a perfect finish from the edge of the box after the Ngezi defence failed to deal with a long clearance from CAPS United goalkeeper Edmore Sibanda.
Chungwa completed his brace on the hour mark with a similar header this time from a Zhuwawo cross as he caught out the Ngezi defence flat footed.
Ndiraya blamed the defeat on the negative approach by his players.
“I think I must give credit to CAPS United, they were more determined than us. I think we saw from the first whistle the way they fought for every ball, they came into the game wanting it more than we did,” Ndiraya said.
“I thought my team never came to the party today, they were slow in everything, all the second balls particularly in midfield we were giving them away. We lost three points away from home which we did not anticipate.”
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