Triangle spoil Akbay’s return Confusion over Cosafa venue
Triangle 2 -1 Ngezi Platinum RUSSEL MADAMOMBE and Kudzai Chigwida spoiled Dutchman Erol Akbay’s start as the Ngezi Platinum coach as they guided Triange to victory in this Castle Lager Premiership match at Gibbo yesterday.
Barnabas Mushunje powered home a free-kick for the visitors’ only goal.
Akbay, the former Bosso coach, said that they made two big mistakes that cost them dearly.
“We tried to play good football in the second half and created three good scoring chances but we were not clinical in front of goals,’’ the Dutchman said. “Triangle are a very physical side but the problem is how you react, we lost, I cannot complain, we played very good football but you have to score, at least one or two goals, and if you don’t do that you can’t win a match.’’ The deadlock was broken after Madamombe converted the spot-kick in the 13th minute when Collins Dhuwa was brought down inside the box and referee Arnold Ncube pointed to the spot. The visitors got an equaliser as debutant Brighton Chayambuka gave away a free-kick which Mushunje struck past goalkeeper Chang Marion in the 25th minute.
The hosts restored their advantage in the 34th minute through Chigwida’s looping header.
Ngezi Platinum had a perfect chance to equalise just three minutes after the breather but Bruno Mtigo pushed his effort wide with only the goalkeeper to beat.
“What we did right was to take the game to them in the early stages and we were just unlucky not to take the lead early.
“They had two very good chances which we did well to defend in the second half and we deservedly won the match. It was an important win, we are done with the runners-up and we are now up against the defending champions and we will need to put up a performance better than today and see how it will unfold,” Triangle coach Taurai Mangwiro. THE venue for the 2019 edition of the Cosafa Senior Tournament scheduled from May 25 to June 8 2019 remains undecided.
Zifa is now in breach of its hosting agreement signed by Zifa late in January 2019, and returned to Cosafa.
Following a board meeting convened on March 9 in Z imba b w e , Z i f a reconfirmed its commitment to hosting the tournament in Zimbabwe, ir respe c t ive of whether they received government funding and guarantees.
Z i f a management committed to presenting to Cosafa written confirmation of this decision no later than March 25.
Unfortunately they failed to deliver on the nominated deadline, which has left Cosafa with no recourse other than to enforce its disciplinary procedures, which process calls for Zifa to attend a disciplinary hearing scheduled for April 4 in Johannesburg. The hearing will be handled by Cosafa’s independent judicial body and the outcome and punitive action will be handed down within 48 hours of the hearing. Cosafa is particularly disturbed by the management of the process by Zifa as 2019 is a critically pivotal year for football in the Sub Saharan region. For the first time in 21 years, five Cosafa member countries have qualified for the Africa Cup of Nations, including Zimbabwe’s celebrated Warriors. The Cosafa sen ior tournament h a s consistently proved to be a vibrant platform of opportunity for all competing countries, and in 2019 has become a key factor in pre-Afcon preparation for the successful qualifiers, with coaches and team management planning to use the Cosafa tournament to fine tune their training prior to the Afcon June 21 kick-off. Cosafa remains hopeful that Zifa will remedy the current situation prior to the disciplinary committee hearing on April 4.