A typical Chidzambwa show

ZPC Kariba. . . . . . . . . . . . . . (0) 1 How Mine. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . (0) 0 ZPC KARIBA played like a typical Sunday Chidzambwa team as they got their 2017 Castle Lager Premier Soccer League campaign off to a 1-nil start.

Daniel Chakupe’s 51st-minute strike secured the points but it was the manner in which the home side was solid at the back that impressed Chidzambwa the most.

The veteran coach, the first to take Zimbabwe’s Warriors to the Africa Cup of Nations, believes the first step to building a strong team is having a strong defence.

And yesterday his defenders did the business, especially in a first-half in which the visitors were the more purposeful side.

How Mine forward Toto Banda spurned a good chance on 25 minutes while Milton Ncube had his free-kick pushed away for a corner as Kelvin Kaindu’s side took the game to the hosts.

ZPC Kariba came back after the restart a more solid outfit, with the introduction of Never Tigere giving the home side more attacking options.

Chidzambwa was his dour, practical self after the game: “Well, there is no bad win. We did not play our best game but the good thing is that we won and did not concede a goal. Obviously there are some areas that we need to work on but the boys did well to collect maximum points today.

The target for this season is to do better than we did last season.”

Kaindu had reservations about the Nyamhunga turf.

“We could not play the way we wanted to play because the turf is bumpy but that is not an excuse for losing the match,” said the Zambian gaffer.

“We did everything right but score and when you don’t score you always give the other team a chance to win the game and that is what happened today. ZPC Kariba made the most of the few chances they created.

“But this is just the start of the season; we have a good team of youngsters and strongly believe that we are good enough to fight for the title this year.”