Ghost of 2016 haunts CAPS Utd

◆ deficit in Harare, news filtered through that Inter Stars had appealed against the use of Makoloni and Martins in their preliminary round tie and CAF found the Green Machine guilty of fielding ineligible players and disqualified the Harare giants from the tournament.

“CAF has disqualif ied CAPS United of Zimbabwe from the MTN/CAF Champions League 2006 for using two unqualified players in their match against Inter Stars of Burundi,” CAF said in a statement.

“The decision was taken by the CAF organising committee after careful study of the complaint lodged by the Inter Stars of Burundi, which is in accordance with Article 23 of the regulations of CAF InterClubs Competitions concerning fraud.”

The Burundians were reinstated into the Champions League, but were hammered 0-7 in Casablanca at the hands of Raja and although they won the return leg 2-1 in Bujumbura, the damage had already been done and they crashed out 2-8 on aggregate.

Raja Casablanca, themselves, who appeared set to lose at the hands of Makepekepe, didn’t last long in the tournament as they fell at the next stage.

Despite the drama that characterised their return to the Champions League and a frustrating goalless draw that leaves them at the mercy of their opponents who could be banking on the value of every goal they score in Harare counting double in the event of a draw, Makepekepe were happy with the way they started their campaign.

The Green Machine were captained by Warriors rightback Hardlife Zvirekwi with regular skipper Moses Muchenje restricted to a place on the bench.

“They are a good team and considering that they didn’t score at their home it would obviously mean that they will come at us in Harare. Remember they also want to progress to the next stage which could make it an uphill task for us,” said Muchenje.

“A goalless draw is quite tricky in that if by chance they get an away goal, we would need to score twice.

“So whilst the result that we got here is okay, a scoring result would have been much advantageous. We still need to work very hard, even double the efforts that we put in when we were preparing for the first leg.

“I think if we can use the chances that we will get at home it will help us to progress to the next round against TP Mazembe.”

Makepekepe will be hoping that their brilliant record at home, and the wide spaces provided by the giant National Sports Stadium, will carry them through.

The Green Machine have not lost a league match at the giant stadium in open play in over a year on their way to winning the 2016 league title.

“We would want to continue with the dominance at home like what we did last season. We had a fine run at home and we want to keep it that way,” said Muchenje.

“Personally, I believe hard work brings success. We have to rectify the mistakes that we noticed in the first match here in Lesotho and work on them so that we won’t repeat the same. That’s the only way we can improve.

“The good thing is that we now know how these guys play. So we are hoping for the best. We will work on it so that we shut them out again.”

Despite some elementary defensive blunders the side exhibited some promising displays especially in the midfield where Devon Chafa and Kamhapa enjoyed their game.

Newboy Ronald “Rooney” Chitiyo was the driving force going forward carving out a number of chances that the Green Machine could not capitalise on.