Chicken Inn progress to quarter finals

Chicken Inn……………. 1

Greenfuel …………………0

CHICKEN Inn FC gaffer, Prince Matore was a happy man after his charges booked their place into the quarter-finals of the 2023 Chibuku Super Cup pipping Greenfuel in a tightly contested match.

As pressure was mounting on him after last week’s league defeat at the hands of Sheasham FC at home, Matore couldn’t be happier to finally get it right.

Chicken Inn were a different outfit to the side that has been struggling in the league with the recent result being last week’s 1-0 defeat against Sheasham. After a couple of weeks on the sidelines, shot-stopper Donovan Bernard retained his place in the starting eleven and striker Brian Muza also returned to the fold, however, coming in as a second-half substitute. A 1-0 win is all Chicken Inn needed to progress to the next stage, and for Matore, they took it as it came. “Cup games are difficult, anything can happen but we are happy we have progressed to the next stage.

We wanted to go to the next stage, so 1-0, we take it. What we have just done is the effort, if we put more effort, and score goals we will win. If we don’t put effort and don’t score we will lose, so today (yesterday) we scored and we won,” said Matore.

Among some of the regular players who missed out on starting places yesterday was the team’s top goal scorer, Michael Charamba and Matore said they were monitoring him as he had a knock. Charamba came in the second-half.

Greenfuel head coach Rodwell Dhlakama said the defeat was a blessing in disguise as it will give them the opportunity to focus on the league race so that they try to maintain their top flight status. A second-half strike from dribbling youngster Genius Mutungamiri was all it took to separate Chicken Inn and Greenfuel.

The youngster, who was given a place in the starting 11 got the only goal of the match in the 58th minute.

It was a brilliant effort from the left-footed winger, who curled the ball to hand Chicken Inn the much needed victory over a stubborn Greenfuel side.

However, the Greenfuel shotstopper David Bizabani will feel he could have done more to prevent the goal as he was in a better position. Dhlakama said mistakes happen in football and cannot blame Bizabani for the goal.

The first-half of the match had less goalmouth action with both sides missing the few chances that they created. Bizabani however, managed to make a couple of brilliant saves to deny Chicken Inn the chance to go in front.

The visitors also had their fair share of chances, but at the end of the first 45 minutes, there was nothing to separate the two.

In search of the breakthrough, both teams made changes at half-time, as they brought in Itai Mabhunu to replace Xolani Ndlovu while at Greenfuel, Nelson Mwasanga came in for Bukhosi Sibanda.

The Chicken Inn substitution paid dividends as 13 minutes later, they managed to go ahead. The goal scorer, Mutungamiri was later replaced by striker Brian Muza with 16 minutes left on the clock.