The Sunday News
Ngqwele Dube, Sports Correspondent
Highlanders chief executive officer, Nhlanhla Dube says the club will only be ready to challenge for honours next year as they are on a re-organisation exercise this year.
He said the coming in of a new technical department and realigning the recruitment process meant the club this year would not be ready to fight at the top.
Dube said the in hiring Madinda Ndlovu as technical manager, they sought contractual stability hence the decision to give him a three- year contract and with that they were eyeing the “correct recruitment, correct training and correct anticipation”.
“In his position, Ndlovu overlooks the whole structure from juniors to Division One and the senior team enabling him to ensure the seamless movement of players from the lower teams to the first team. Basically our target in the first year is reorganization, to get a team that competes at the top level, players with passion and fight for every ball and from the preseason and first league game I think we can see that we have achieved that target.
“We are aiming at building a competitive side that plays a brand of football which is recognisable as the Highlanders brand of the game, the type which those who know Highlanders can watch the team playing and say this is the Highlanders we know,” he said.
Dube said the aim was to recruit a team that is not only largely youthful but with players mainly coming from the club’s development system and this had been achieved with eight players in this year’s squad coming from Bosso90 the Division One side and five from the under-18 team.
He said they expect the team to start challenging for honours next year including the league championship which Highlanders last won in 11 years ago, an embarrassing statistic for a club of Bosso’s stature.
Dube said in the third year the team should be a well-oiled machine if it is kept largely intact although they will anticipate movement of players.
“You can’t stop players moving because there are better paying leagues out there so what we have to do is to simply anticipate such movements and ensure there is enough arsenal to plug whatever gaps that might emerge along the way,” he said.
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