In 2016, Kalisto Pasuwa had a young assistant coach with the Warriors called Mkhuphali Masuku, who has mysteriously disappeared from the Zimbabwe football scene.
Touted as one of the brightest coaching prospects in Zimbabwe after coaching the Warriors, Highlanders, and Caps United, Masuku has not been heard of since the days he left Harare City in 2018.
Affectionately known as Mr Cooper, Masuku was expected to have been in the trenches with one of the teams in the Castle Lager Premier Soccer League from the knowledge and experience he garnered with the Warriors, the Young Warriors, as well as with Caps United and Highlanders.
Moreso that he was one of Highlanders' great players of his generation winning the league championship in 2006, the last time Bosso won the title.
"The most important thing is to do your job and to do it well. That is all I have always tried to do all my life" Masuku once remarked.
In appointing him, Pasuwa had seen the value Masuku would add to the Warriors' changing room hence the decision to bring him closer.
Masuku had earlier been one of the Warriors' assistant coaches for Ian Gorowa at Chan 2014 and was also Zimbabwe Under 23 assistant coach in 2013.
"Mkhupali is a good and young coach whose ideas will help us reach our destination. I believe, we will work together well in achieving our goal," said Pasuwa then.
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Pasuwa and his team, which was captained by Knowledge Musona and driven by Khama Billiat went on to achieve that goal by qualifying for the 2017 Afcon finals with two games still to spare.
Zimbabwe qualified as group winners with 11 points, three ahead of Swaziland and Guinea and six ahead of bottom placed Malawi.
It would have been expected that Masuku who had a dance with the senior national team — and others like him — would have been visible in the Castle Lager Premier Soccer League set up today.
However, he has joined a list of promising young coaches who have disappeared from the football scene for reasons unknown like Mike Madzivanyika, Jack Mutandagai, Stewart Murisa, Shadreck and Never Malunga, Ralph Kawondera, amongst others.
Some say the Zimbabwean football coaching system is resistent to new coaches, preferring instead to recycle the same old coaches who — every year — move from one team to another and back again.
When asked why there were no new young coaches coming through, the chairman of the Zimbabwe Soccer Coaches Association Bheki Nyoni said it was a process and not a revolution.
"It is a process. Young coaches like Joel Luphaha are getting and will get their chance but they cannot come in big numbers at the same time.It depends on the choice of clubs," explained Nyoni.
However, a close associate of his says Masuku has relocated to Wales in the United Kingdom where he is still involved with football, but all efforts to contact him proved fruitless.
