The Zifa Northern Region Division One League is set to score a first by introducing a junior league which will be a feeder to the senior teams.
Willard Manyengavana, the League’s chairman, has revealed that their ambition is to groom most of their players.
“We don’t want a situation whereby our teams from the Northern Region get promoted into the Premier League and struggle,” said Manyengavana. “We want our teams to compete for honours with the same players they came with from our league.”
“Look at Herentals, they didn’t buy any big name players, but they finished in the sixth position, the best finish among Harare teams. So this is the thing we want from the Northern Region to have a huge player base to chose from. This is something we have been working on for some years. We want our teams to be very competitive and also that teams that come from our region into the premier league be competitive.”
Mushowani StaFC Platinum will be without the influential midfielder Kelvin Madzongwe for their last Total African champions league group match against Esperance at Babourfields Stadium in Bulawayo on Saturday.
Madzongwe, the only infield player to have played the entire 90 minutes of all their matches since the start of the campaign, is serving suspension together with Gift Bello and Elvis Moyo who was red-carded in the last match against Orlando Pirates.
Pure Platinum Play anchor the group standings with just two points, which they managed in the home and away draws against Orlando Pirates. The only positive for the team going into the Esperance match is that they managed to break the scoring jinx, and scored two goals away to Pirates.
Meanwhile, the visiting North African team arrived in the country on Friday morning.
