The ManicaPost
Ray Bande Senior Reporter
TONIGHT the nation will know who among the 11 finalists has landed the 2019 Castle Lager Premiership Soccer Star of the Year but will certainly wait a little longer to know whether Clive Augusto – the former Chicken Inn top man who last played domestic top-flight football in August – has remained the league’s leading goal scorer.
Even though he played just half of the season, the 14 goals Augusto scored for Chicken Inn before he left are proving to be a handful for competitors.
Such is the chronic shortage of strikers in Zimbabwean football, a pathetic state of affairs that a player who left more than three months ago still leads the scoring charts.
With just two matches remaining in the season, Augusto appears the overwhelming favourite to win the coveted PSL Golden Boot after scoring 14 goals from 17 starts before leaving to join South Africa’s Maritzburg United mid-season.
No one is yet to catch up with the striker as the league championship will be wrapping up after two rounds of league matches, a major indictment of local football.
His closest competitor, Evans Katema of Dynamos, has 12 goals to his name and with the way the fading Harare giants are settling for draws in recent matches it is difficult to imagine Katema surpassing Augusto’s tally.
Staunch Mutare-based Dynamos and Liverpool supporter Munyaradzi Zinomwe said: “The emergence of South Africa’s ABSA Premier League as the highest paying league in Africa has contributed to our downfall. All promising strikers are being easily lured either to the ABSA Premiership or even the Mvela Golden League – South Africa’s First Division.
“Also more needs to done to our football academies to focus and develop quality strikers. Football also has become more defensive whereby many formations now prefer a false number nine. Goals are now being spread among midfielders and defenders. Roving wingbacks are also contributing an avalanche of goals.”
Ngezi Platinum gaffer Rodwell Dhlakama said: “The issue of strikers is multi-dimensional. Firstly, the coaches are working hard especially on the defensive part of the game so strikers are not able to score. Most of the players are a product of coaching, there is no natural talent to talk about.
“All the same we are not looking beyond towns and cities for good players. We have so many talented players who are going unnoticed because of the prevailing environment. We need to broaden our scope in terms of player scouting.
“In the same breath we also need to give credit to coaches for making sure that their teams are watertight in defence. This has resulted in fewer goals being scored. So we have to give the coaches credit for that.”
Renowned fitness trainer Chris Mhike said: “I doubt whether we have had problems with strikers. The challenge that we have is not about strikers. The problem that we have is that each time we have a good striker they are snatched up by teams in the ABSA Premiership.
“This has happened over a number of occasions and this year is no exception. Terence Dzukamanja, Augusto, Rodwell Chinyengetere, the list is long. So I do not think we have a problem of strikers. Way back the quality strikers like Shackman Tauro, Vitalis Takawira and many others remained here but today many of them in their early stages, they leave for South Africa.”
Interestingly, this will be the ninth year since a player has scored less than 20 goals in the local league after Norman Maroto achieved the feat in 2010.
But in the last two seasons CAPS United’s Dominic Chungwa and Reigning Soccer Star of the Year Rodwell Chinyengetere scored 17, in 2017 and 2018 respectively.
In 2016, Leonard Tsipa scooped the top goalscorer award after netting a measly 11 goals in CAPS United’s successful league campaign.
Lately, prolific scorers in the country, like Augusto, are being snapped up by South African sides during the mid-season transfer window as happened to Dzvukamanja and Bukhosi Sibanda in the past couple of years.
Former Chicken Inn striker Tendai Ndoro, who won the top marksman award in 2013 with 18 goals, did not finish the season. He moved to Cape Town City.
Augusto could emulate Ndoro, who only played half the season to win the top gong should no one surpass his 14-goal tally, but so far the other players have done a bad job of it.
Of interest is also the fact that in 2015, Knox Mtizwa won the Golden Boot after scoring 14 goals in 17 matches, exactly the same number as Augusto.
The fact that Ngodzo, a midfielder, is also in the race for the Golden Boot says a lot about the quality of strikers in the local league.
CAPS United striker John Zhuwawu is fourth in the race with eight goals while five players have scored seven goals each going into this weekend’s league matches.
The sports fraternity awaits to see whether someone will step up to the plate in the last five league matches to pip Augusto to the Golden Boot award.
But it is highly unlikely that anyone will reach the 20-goal mark.
Players that have scored 20 or more goals since 2000 include record scorer in the modern premier league Chipo Tsodzo, who notched up 27 strikes for Masvingo United in 2001.
The previous season Railstars’ Zambian import, Mulenga Chewe, recorded 24 as well as Zenzo Moyo, who netted 21 times for Highlanders in 2002.
Evans Chikwaikwai finished with 23 goals for Njube Sundowns in 2008, while Nyasha Mushekwi managed 21 a year later before Maroto got in on the act with 22 for Gunners in 2010.
