Highlanders knocked out of One Wallet Cup

Sport
HIGHLANDERS became the third team to be knocked out of the One Wallet Cup with a 4-3 penalty shootout loss at the hands of Bulawayo city rivals How Mine at Ascot yesterday.

How Mine . . . (1) Highlanders . . . (1)

BY MUKUDZEI CHINGWERE IN GWERU

How Mine win 4-3 on penalties

HIGHLANDERS became the third team to be knocked out of the One Wallet Cup with a 4-3 penalty shootout loss at the hands of Bulawayo city rivals How Mine at Ascot yesterday.

The game had ended 1-1 after regulation time with Godfrey Nguwodzawo cancelling Felix Chindungwe’s early goal.

Highlanders’ elimination comes after FC Platinum and Harare City were knocked out of the same competition by Chicken Inn and Triangle United on Friday.

In their three previous league games there has never been a share of spoils with How Mine winning on two occasions. Bosso have also been victorious against their rivals when they beat them in the Mbada Diamonds cup final last year.

Before the shootouts, a masterstroke of a substitution by Bosso gaffer Kelvin Kaindu saw him replace forward Ozias Zibande with goalkeeper Ariel Sibanda, but the substitution had its fair share of blame on the match officials who allowed the former to come in without a jersey number on his back.

Goalkeepers come alive in the penalty shootouts and the duo ofMunyaradzi Diya and Ephraim Mazarura lived up to expectations. Diya converted his spot kick and saved the other while he was not wearing his mandatory goalkeeping gloves.

Mazarura converted his and was unbeaten on two attempts adding to his regulation time penalty save when he denied Charles Sibanda. The quartet of Gilbert Banda, Mazarura, Wonder Sithole and Brighton Dube converted their spot kicks for How Mine, while the trio of Muthulisi Maphosa, Sibanda and Diya were on target for Bosso.

Xolani Moyo’s sole miss for How Mine was cancelled by the Highlanders duo of Valentine Ndaba and Welcome Ndiweni who failed to beat veteran Mazarura from twelve yards.

After the match Kaindu said his plan was to win in regulation time which unfortunately failed to happen.

“It is unfortunate we have been knocked out of the first round. We had planned to win the game in 90 minutes. “We could have taken advantage of that penalty but unfortunately we missed (in reference to Charles Sibanda’s miss in regulation),” said Kaindu. The winning coach Philani Ncube was on cloud nine after seeing his charges knockout their biggest rivals.

“There was no way we could have lost here. We collected our first point of this season at this venue and we were confident.

“We had the desire to win and we were motivated to do our best,” said Ncube. Zibande thought he had got the lead for Bosso as early as the eighth minute but he was adjudged to have scored in an offside position. Four minutes later, Bosso surged ahead when Felix Chindungwe’s powerful shot gave Mazarura no chance.

With 29 minutes on the clock Nguwodzawo headed Muzanenhamo’s corner for the equaliser.

Four minutes after the breather George Magariro fouled Sibanda inside the box and referee Makonese Masakadza awarded a penalty. From the resultant spot kick Sibanda failed to give his team the lead.

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