The Sunday News
Mehluli Sibanda, Senior Sports Reporter
AFTER agonisingly coming close to earning promotion in 2019, then seeing their well assembled teams in 2020 as well as 2021 not being able to take to the field, FC Talen Vision have decided to go for young players for the 2021/22 season.
Talen Vision lost out to Bulawayo City on promotion to the Premier Soccer League when they had led for most parts of the race only to fall at the last hurdle. Last year and this year, they strengthened their squad as they sought to mount a serious challenge for the Zifa Southern Region Division One title.
With no action having taken place the whole of 2020 and this year, the ambitious club has decided playing youngsters was the way to go.
Mkhululi Mthunzi, the Talen Vision general-manager outlined that they had put together a team mostly made up of youngsters that will be able to compete in the Zifa Southern Region.
“We have assembled a young team that is going to compete in line with our new vision, in line with the new transformation. What we have done is that we have recruited young players. We have also taken some from the old
Talen Vision whom the technical department felt will play a major role,’’ Mthunzi said.
In August, Talen Vision decided to temporarily suspend contracts of players after the club’s main sponsors, Trukumb
Mine resolved that in view of the Covid-19 situation, they could not continue funding inactive footballers but will instead channel funds to projects.
Players were asked to be part of the projects but some decided that they did not want to be and asked to be cleared.
“We have given clearance letters to the players to play for any team of their choice, almost the entire team for 2021 has been cleared.”
The Talen Vision Academy, which had secured promotion to the Zifa Central Region Division One League and was meant to use the Trukumb Mine name has since been disbanded. Mthunzi pointed out that their plan was to always have one strong team.
“It was within our vision to have one united team, if we could have played in 2020, we were going to have two teams. We wanted to assemble a very strong side that will assault for the Premier Soccer League, in the meantime we groom youngsters that will play in the premier league,’’ Mthunzi said.
“Because of the coronavirus, we were forced to adjust where we say we want to have one team. We met as a board, we deliberated on that and we felt the team we had assembled in 2020 was meant to win the championship then the other team plays in the PSL, the one made up of young players but two years of inactivity, we thought they had negative repercussions to our players.
So we agreed that we will have one young team that will compete in the Zifa Southern Region,’’ he continued.
A squad of 30 players has been assembled, with Mthunzi pointing out that there is no pressure of winning the championship in the upcoming season.
“We have 30 players, 90 percent of them are youngsters, that’s the team for the future, of course, we will not be in the Southern Region to fulfil fixtures. We will be there to compete with these youngsters and we have no pressure to say we want to win anything but we want to compete, remain there, remember, this is a long term project,’’ Mthunzi said.
Talen Vision have been busy preparing for the start of the start of the 2021/22 Zifa Southern Region Division One League, which officially starts on 15 January. Lizwe Sweswe is in charge of the team with his assistants being Sithethelelwe Sibanda and Try Ncube.
Farai Sibanda is the goalkeepers coach, former player, Heritani Masuku is the welfare manager while Jacqueline Ngwenya is the kit manager.
Mthunzi believes that they have come up with a solid technical department that can deliver improved results.
“I think our technical department is very good and can outwit quite a number of coaches in Division One. We have assembled a very strong technical team, we hope with the recruitment that we have done, the patience we have, we are likely to do better this time,’’ said Mthunzi.
While the team has been fine tuning in Filabusi, Mthunzi could not be drawn to comment on which ground they will use as their home when the season eventually starts.
Sweswe will have an opportunity to put his side to the test at White City Stadium this afternoon when they face Arenel in a Zifa Southern Region knockout tournament round of 16 match.
Follow on Twitter @Mdawini_29
