Man Utd Beat Liverpool 3-1 To Claim First Trophy

Manchester United had to come from behind to beat Liverpool 3-1 in the International Champions Cup final in front if 51 000 spectators in Miami. To many fans already obsessed with Louis van Gaal, they feel they have won the league.

However, their performance against the Reds wasn’t as commanding as other and the Red Devils went behind through a Steven Gerrard penalty after 14 minutes.

Liverpool were the better side in the first half and De Gea was the goalkeeper with more work to do, making his best save against Philippe Coutinho.

After the break, Liverpool initially remained on top but, in the space of two minutes, United turned the game on its head.

First Wayne Rooney, captain of the night, equalized when he met Hernandez’s arrowing cross with a neat volley. Mata put the Reds ahead two minutes later when his shot deflected off Mamdou Sakho.

Rooney had another goal ruled out after Young’s cross had bounced off the goal stanchion and not the cross bar as first suspected by the referee who was overruled by his assistant.

The second half was disrupted by a couple of changes from both sides but youngster Jesse Lingard ensured the victory when he fired a low half-volley from the edge of the box.

The victory ensured Louis van Gaal's men return unbeaten from their US tour, winning five out of five games (one after penalties), and claiming the International Champions Cup trophy.

Barcelona’s Tiki Taka program to benefit Zimbabwean football?

Barcelona coaches came to Zimbabwe to run a two-day coaching clinic or seminar starting today in Harare, courtesy of Castle Lager, the league sponsors. The timely intervention to the deteriorating league game is a two day event expected to equip the Premier League coaches and other mentors from around the country.

Attending the clinic will be one thing, while implementation is another. The Zimbabwean Castle Lager Premier League match between Dynamos and Caps United yesterday proved a little better than their appalling clash in the NetOne sponsored One Wallet. Despite immaturity in decision-making and tactical awareness, the players from both teams played direct football, launching the ball forward. This clinic may help.

This eyesore of a game has some positives as it gets the ball into the penalty box very quickly and early enough before the opponents settle and shut the door. To complement the numerous raids, the strikers take these opportunities with decisive feet and score goals.

What makes it more interesting is that the shooting is taken quickly on sight. There is no time to control and think twice. This catches the goalkeepers unawares. This instinctive and predatory behaviour requires execution of technique under excessive pressure, therefore perfecting high-level skills.

With a slower version of the South African game, the Zimbabweans find the ABSA Premier League a free scoring assignment. These players benefit two things by playing the high-tempo kick and run game. It teaches them to defend efficiently by reducing time and space for the opponents and dispatching the ball quickly.

The other valuable lesson comes at the other end of the field, where the strikers learn to pounce on the less suspecting defenders and score before the goalkeepers have positioned themselves. They learn to deal with the ball very decisively and quickly under pressure and finish well. Doing these things in competitive matches prepares the individuals to be quick and versatile.

The problem is that the midfield creativity is eliminated. This launching and shelling game, the defenders work excessively, causing the central and defensive midfielders to withdraw to assist in the defending. You may associate this with the great central defenders that league has been producing lately.

By-passing the centre of the park makes these matches very ugly and uninspiring. It is this kind of football that characterised Division One matches when I coached in that country. The reasons for playing that way included the very bad bumpy surfaces we played in and the poor refereeing as the hometown decisions were the order of the day. The strategies required to clonk the ball away from the 18-yard box and send in into the other 18-yard area to avoid bizarre penalty calls.

That negative side in the top league emanates from the promotion and relegation mechanism. With just 16 teams in the top league, Zimbabwe has a massive 32 team Division One divided into four regions. The league demotes four teams and promotes four. That is the source of their problems.

The league relegates reasonably experienced teams while extremely diluting the game with mediocre quality from lower leagues. That league requires an additional two teams to make it an 18-team league. The country needs to restructure the game completely, ask the sponsors to double the funds for the Premier League to carry Division One football under its wings.

The PSL would need only two streams of the First Division where the winners go up and the bottom two PSL teams facing the chop. The national association currently administer the four Division One leagues and they promised the winners top-flight football. The Castle Lager Premier League only prepared to accept two teams and relegate two, but that did not pass.

The status quo will not last long. One hopes that the Barcelona coaching seminar will bring in the sense of Tiki Taka to that country’s game. It will never wipe away the blasting of the balls, but the prospect of the combination of the two styles will win Zimbabwean clubs the Africa Champions League and the Warriors the AFCON.

What do you think?

How Orlando Pirates beat Kaizer Chiefs to win Carling Black Label Cup

The first Soweto derby of the season, the Carling Black Label played at the FNB Stadium proved that South African football is on the ascendance. This pre-season tournament, now in its fourth year, got fans to vote for their preferred starting eleven players from both Kaizer Chiefs and Orlando Pirates.

Without Simphiwe Tshabalala, Bernand Parker and Knowledge Musona through injuries, Chiefs brought in Willard Katsande replacing Simphiwe Tshabalala, Katlego Mphela and Kingston Nkhatha to the starting line-up.

The match needed 18 kicks from the penalty spot to decide the winner after the 0-0 fulltime stalemate. Let us say, 19 kicks, as George Maluleka missed the regulation time penalty that was awarded to George Lebese when Rooi Mahamutsa felled him wide on the right. Maluleka had to hit the same spot twice, the left top corner of the cross bar.

Chiefs controlled the first half, while Pirates displayed a very mature brand of football. If that match was anything to go by, the local game grew by leaps and bounds. The passing, ball control and decision making was excellent.  

Both teams took particular shapes and each unit engaging the opposite in direct confrontation and combat seen in the 2014 Brazil Fifa World Cup. The ball moved from the back into the midfield and passed through to the final third. The players showed a lot of trust in their teammate’s abilities by passing and supporting the player in case they needed an outlet to pass the ball.

To match the daring passing, the ball control surpassed the expectation as the midfield battles saw players turned and ran with the ball in a congested area looking for spaces in the attacking third. This exhibition by both teams excited the crowds and coaches alike; however, the conclusion of the attacks never matched the moves from behind through the preparation zone.

The wing play and penetration into the final third became the point of weakness of the whole match by both teams. The ball was never played wide often enough, and in rare moment that the ball was played to crossing areas, it was done very late with defenders already in good defending areas.

The Chiefs defence kept their line and shape and easily thwarted each attack from Pirates. Given that it is the beginning of the season, defensive and midfield work takes priority, as much as physical conditioning. The teams showed exceptional quick passing and ball control skills. The interception by both sets of defenders proved sharp enough as they blocked each other’s attack completely restricting the entire match to less than 3 shots on target for each team.

One hopes that the Zimbabwean football fraternity watched and took notes of how the game should be played. There is no need to photocopy the whole match, but the concept of the game should fundamentally be followed. Highlanders, How Mine, Dynamos and Caps United of the Castle Lager Premier League played a close resemblance of the game.

Pirates and Chiefs did not play the way the Dutch or Germany played, but it showed they followed the modern trends of the game. If the rest of the ABSA Premier League teams and the National First Division follow the same pattern, the South African football can be said to have come of age. One hopes that it only gets better.

Highlanders lose crucial points to Bantu as Dynamos blast Caps

Highlanders Football Club failed to score for the first time at Barbourfields Stadium this season when they locked horns with city rivals, Bantu Rovers. Bosso played a subdued match, coming under excessive pressure in a match many consider the fading giant lucky to come out with a point.

Bantu Rovers did their homework and dominated the match as they exploited the left wing where Bosso were found wanting. The Highlanders defence fought hard to deal with a Bantu striker and could not construct a move to open their opponents defence. The stalemate favoured Bantu as it was a point gained while Amahlolanyama would consider two points lost.

Dynamos came from behind to score twice in the second half. Caps United had taken an early lead but failed to stretch that lead out of reach for the Harare rivals. The Green Machine wasted numerous first half chances and they were punished in the later stages of the match.

It took a few minutes for the equaliser to come as poor marking characterised Caps defence. The goalkeeper was also at fault as he came off the goal-line for an acrobatic atempt to fly past his head.

Lack of pressure on the ball and lousy marking sealed the Dembare victory as a deflected shot was not cleared by the defenders. The second attempt whistled past the goalkeeper into the net to seal the victory.

Highlanders’ lead on the  Castle Lager Premier Soccer League table was reduced to a single point.