KAINDU, KALISTO’S CLASSIC BATTLE
IT’S hard not to like Kelvin Kaindu — he is a very cool guy, a deeply religious fellow, a model professional and an honest human being.
He is a very reserved man, who prefers to let his work do the talking, while he watches from a distance.
KK is also a man who loves our football and has been committed, for some time now, to play a very big part in helping it fulfil its huge potential.
He is back here for another romance with a very special club, which has become a big part of his professional football Curriculum Vitae.
I like KK because in him I see an ally in the development of our national game, a proper gentleman and an expert we can count on to add real value to our football.
At 46, KK is a better representative of the future of the game, especially when compared to the man he replaced at Highlanders.
Baltemar Brito, the Brazilian coach who conspired to sell Bosso a fantasy last season, is 72 and, with all due respect, represents the past.
Maybe, one of the things which drew me closer to KK was that I just felt that during his last dance in local football, he was very unlucky.
In the last 18 years, Bosso have been struggling to find where Methembe Ndlovu left the password he was using to unlock the path to the glory of a league championship.
Bosso have won SIX league championships in 30 years in the era of the Premiership and DeMbare have won EIGHT during the same period.
That it’s DeMbare who have EIGHT league titles and Bosso who have won SIX, and not the opposite, boils down to the events of two remarkable seasons in 2012 and 2013.
In those two seasons, these two giants went toe-to-toe in a grand showdown, which had as much unpredictability as it had a touch of brutality.
PROBABLY THE GREATEST HEAD-TO-HEAD DUEL EVER
On both occasions, it was Kalisto Pasuwa and his Glamour Boys who ended celebrating after capturing the league championship in 2012 and 2013.
They say history is written by those who emerge victorious.
Therefore, don’t be surprised if you haven’t heard the other side of this gripping tale in which Kaindu’s Bosso gave it everything but just could not transform themselves into champions.
Kaindu holds the record as the ONLY coach, in the history of the domestic Premiership, who lost ONE game all season but still ended up failing to win the championship.
He is one of the just TWO coaches in our Premiership, stretching back to when the topflight league started in 1962, whose team lost just ONE league game throughout the season.
The other is Charles Mhlauri, whose CAPS United side were beaten only once, in their 30 league matches, during the 2004 season.
However, CAPS United won that championship easily and finished 15 points clear of second-placed Bosso.
Sadly, for Kaindu and his Bosso, there were no such end-of-season dividends for losing just one match all season as they ended second to Dynamos because they had an inferior goal difference.
Kaindu;s men went 23 games without defeat that season before they suffered their only loss in a 0-3 thrashing, at the hands of Monomotapa
at Rufaro, in Round 24 of the fixtures.
Bosso’s tally of 69 points in 2012, which gave them second place because of goal difference, were more than what Highlanders needed to win the inaugural Premiership title in 1993.
The points would have been enough to win the championship in ’94, ’95, ’97, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 209, 2010, 2011, 2013, 2014, 2015 and 2016.
To put things into context, Kaindu and his men had more points in 2012, when they finished second, than the points which FC Platinum needed to win the league championship in 2019 and which Ngezi Platinum needed to win the same title last year.
When you consider that FC Platinum and Ngezi Platinum have been playing 34 league games, instead of the 30 games which Bosso played in 2012, then you can get a good idea of why Kaindu and his Class of 2012 were very special and very unlucky.
The following season Kaindu once again matched Pasuwa and, by the end of the season, their teams had the same number of points (54).
Yet again, the Glamour Boys won the championship by virtue of a superior goal difference.
In those two seasons Kaindu and Pasuwa guided the two giants in 60 games and both were rewarded with 123 points with Bosso winning 36 matches and DeMbare winning 35.
Surely, it can’t get any closer than that when it comes to head-to-head duels between two young and bright coaches with the toughest two jobs in Zimbabwean football, the national team included.
CAN THE PSL FINALLY REWARD KAINDU?
There have been some gruelling head-tohead contests, when it comes to coaches, in the domestic Premiership but none as big as the ones we witnessed during those two years when Kaindu and Pasuwa took their duel into the playing fields of heaven.
If Kaindu, Takesure Chiragwi, Norman Mapeza and Genesis Mangombe can give us a duel, which is just half of what Kaindu and Pasuwa gave us in 2012 and 2013, then we can have a league championship to remember.
The instability at DeMbare, where decisions can be made as if they are running a vendor’s stall at Mbare Musika, means Genesis will always have a disadvantage because he works for a club where some Madhalas still believe the best prescription to success is some weird snuff from a sangoma.
Chiragwi did very well to land his first league title last year but he knows that defending it will be harder.
I’m not sure whether they still have the same appetite, for the league title, at FC Platinum, which they used to have before they won those four championships on the bounce.
Which, then, opens the path for Kaindu to try and make up for what he lost in those two years when no coach could beat his team’s tally, at the end of the two seasons, but he still ended up empty-handed.
You get the feeling that if this game has a heart then it should remember Kaindu and, in some way, compensate him for everything he threw into those two championship races in which he still ended up with nothing.
He deserves his crown and if he can win it on his return to Bosso, after all the politics and challenges he faced in the final days of his previous stint, then the game would have paid its debt to him.
Kaindu is a prayer warrior and I’m pretty sure he is a man who believes that God will avail him the rewards, which come with success in this game, at the right time.
I know, because of his very strong Christian beliefs, he hasn’t spent the last decade mourning the two golden chances he lost to win the championship with his beloved Bosso.
You’re unlikely to hear any story about Kaindu having a secret relationship with the wife or girlfriend of one of his players, like what other coaches do.
Neither are you likely to hear that Kaindu used his position to extort money from players, demanding that they give him a share of their winning bonuses as payment for his decision to field them in the team.
This is because he is an upright man and, amazingly, he will tell you that his conviction in God was even strengthened by those two near-misses when his club came so close, yet so far, from the Promised Land.
I like all our coaches and this means that I will still be fine if any of them win the league championship even though, if I had the magical powers to shape the outcome of the race, I would ensure that the title is won by Chegutu Pirates’ Day Gutu.
There is bias there because the Pirates are the closest thing that we, the Chakariboys, can call our own, when it comes to the Premiership.
But, the best story would be the domestic Premiership rewarding Kaindu for what it took away from him in those two years in 2012 and 2013.
What a great time it was for us mere witnesses.
To God Be The Glory!
Peace to the GEPA Chief, the Big Fish, George Norton, Daily Service, Sitting Bull, Crazy Horse and all the Chakariboys still in the struggle.
Come on Chegutu Pirates!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Zaireeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!
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