Highlanders is on track

(A late days late but read). Highlanders Football Club have been singing the blues in the last few years, either leading their finances to be in the red or due to being in such. Whether they will scoop the league title this year after hitting purple patch of their current season, is still a grey area as rivals have been hand-picked to the summit of the table and match officials seem to bare their agenda for all to see. Referees have been on Bosso's case lately in an embarrassing manner.

Hoping for the green light to compete in the CAF Champions League is motivation enough for coach Kelvin Kaindu's men in black and white. Working on the team's mentality and tactics will never easy for the coach and team, given the man feels pressure himself. One can pretend to be strong and keep his head above water.

That pressure naturally comes with working with a team that has no problems. In cases where the finances are a worries, and then some boardroom decisions are badly cooked, the favouritism from the referees, injuries, suspensions, lack of depth and bad form of key players, trying to work on systems that produce results week in and week out can be an uphill task.

In an ideal situation, even excellent systems and tactics fail. They collapse even without an opposition. When you add one obstacle, the situation worsens if two are added and then in a match there are eleven. Everyone has a bad day in office and it helps no one if the whole team is off tune.

Of course, trying to appease a wonderful sea of black and white fans and supporters tops the agenda for the coach, who has incredibly place the team on a higher platform that expected so far. Strategically piecing the puzzle together for next year, Kaindu instilled discipline and workmanship of lofty standards on and off the pitch.

The club boasts of professional footballers committed to the cause, making the average look good. The catchment area of the club and grooming the youth development products can be one attribution to rounded performances.

Earlier in the year and in one of my books, there was a piece of how to convert a hopeless situation to a narrow loss, a lost cause to a draw and a gruelling draw to a bad win and then trying to play good football and winning. If you imagined that to be an event, it is unfortunate. In each of the above, it would take a season. The Zambian coach convinced many by the beautiful matches the players displayed. He could be ahead in some aspects, but there will always be a trailing leg.

Given the thumb, fans demand the whole arm, a very grateful gesture from the ignorant. Some tactically aspects will be very easy for some players, but others will be demanding. Even on the simple ones, sometimes the most brilliant players fail to comprehend. That is the nature of a football match -  its anatomy.

In a nutshell, this is a spectrum of things as only at the end of the rainbow is the treasure.