Not Yet Time For Mafu


By Perkins-Tino Bare
Under-Fire Highlanders coach lived to fight another day as his side bounced back from a rather embarrassing defeat at the hands of Caps United in Matchday 7 as they saw off Flame Lily by 3-0 in a bumpy Lafarge stadium in a match played yesterday in the Matchday 8 fixtures. 
Bongani Mafu went into the match knowing well that were his charges going to slip then it was eventually going to be time up for his stint at Highlanders which has not started well with alarm bells going off so early.
Highlanders fought well for Mafu yet again as the Zimbabwean Under-23 striker Thomas Chideu found the target 23 minutes into the match. Gabriel Nyoni then doubled Bosso`s lead as he came on as a substitute on 54 minutes following an injury to Nqobizitha Masuku. Nine minutes from time Bosso then got a third one as they caught Flame Lily on the brink. 
Speaking in an interview after the match, his assistant Mandla Mpofu was naturally pleased with the victory. “We came into this match under pressure to win after our defeat to Caps United. We are happy with the attitude from the players, especially the strikers who had not scored coming into this match. From the outset we were on top, creating opportunities. What is important now is the home tie against Harare City, but this victory is a great motivator,” Mpofu said.His counterpart Nesbert Saruchera blamed the defeat on his defence. “We were let down by the defence. We didn’t defend very well as we should do. We gave away all those goals, but we created a lot of chances which we could have scored, maybe it was just not our day,” Saruchera said
Flame Lily dominated the possession but nothing fruitful materialised from it as they could only push numbers up the field till they were caught on the brink to hand them the final knockout blow. Bosso themselves in spite of winning the match did not play well either as they were on the backfoot on most of the match and considering that this is a Flame lily side that just got promoted this is rather unacceptable for a Highlanders side that was chasing the title just last season. 
Before the match the Bosso fans were unanimously calling for Mafu`s head but after the match the victory served as a nice sweet for that crying baby as soon after the match the unanimous view was that Highlanders need to give Mafu more time.”Lets give him more time (Mafu) I think he is being pressured at Barbourfileds as the team now seems to be performing better when its on the road than when its playing at home”. 

The time the fans are calling for is quite destructive in that as pointed on Sportsline in regards to Mafu, In modern day football a team cannot afford to give a coach more time as it can prove to be disastrous. This is true for one thing the executive at Highlanders are not considering is if they will be able to take care of Mafu`s business when he`s done. One thing that is certain at this moment is that Bongani Mafu may not to last the distance especially in the light of the fact that Madinda Ndlovu just got out of a job and if Highlanders at some point going to eventually go for a better coach then they could as well just do it now. 
Also after this Flame Lily win Highlanders have a date with a revamped Harare City that also won yesterday against a rather sloppy ZPC Kariba and then they play table-topping Chicken-Inn in a Bulawayo derby and this phase of matches is going to have a great toll on who is going to be coming out of the dugout at Barbourfields come November.

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