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Dingilizwe Ntuli Sports Editor
THERE has always been an abundance of cheer and hope among Highlanders’ fans at the beginning of each season that maybe this time the quality of Bosso’s play will rise and the team will challenge for silverware, including the league title. Despite a promising start, it always turns out to be a false dawn as the team ends up playing catch-up football.
But what really is the problem? It certainly can’t be lack of support because the team has a huge, passionate and loyal following around Zimbabwe. On the evidence of yesterday’s Bulawayo derby in the Independence Cup final against Chicken Inn in Harare, the Bosso players clearly lacked fitness.
The players suffered a lot for the better part of the second half and you could see how tired they were in their faces. Bosso are capable of playing in an attractive way like they did in the first half, but their players were easily shrugged off the ball in the second half. The long ball technique the Highlanders players resorted to in the second half also exposed their lack of physicality and sheer power to cope.
Stamina was a major problem in the Highlanders team last season and maybe they need a trainer to retain the fitness of the players. The tiki-taka type of football coach Erol Akbay says he is introducing will continue to be let down by the players’ low fitness and stamina levels.
Although players have a responsibility to look after themselves, the technical staff should at least plan definite physical fitness programmes for players in which they will be imparted training by fitness experts.
All Chicken Inn players were comfortable on the ball and emerged on top of most physical encounters against their Highlanders counterparts simply because the club recognises the importance of the physical conditions of their players.
Chicken Inn have regular weekly fitness sessions at the gym, while Highlanders somehow thinks of such training as less important. Less than a handful of Bosso players do fitness training individually at the gym.
Highlanders must just hire a full time fitness coach because until they have professional staff that concentrate on every aspect of their players’ health, from diet to training regime, they will continue to surrender the lead like they did yesterday and be pushed around by physically fitter and stronger opponents.
