The 2025 Castle Lager Premier Soccer League is just seven matches into the season, but it has already shown promise that our football is heading for better times.
Apart from the Caps United witch hunt drama — and the Dynamos free fall — it has so far been an exciting season characterised by entertaining football and surprise results.
Even the refereeing, which has always been a borne of contention has so far been good with more and more female referees at the centre.
That is not forgetting TelOne's Washington Navaya who has been a revelation plundering seven goals in six matches and at this rate could well go over the 20 goal mark in one season.
Surely, those who have been to football matches would be the first to admit that there has been a huge change for the better in terms of the quality of football on display.
At the rate we are moving, it would not be a surprise that very soon, Zimbabwe will be able to produce a team or teams capable of standing their ground in Pan African football.
Not forgetting that with the way things are going, Zimbabwe could also come up with a strong and exciting team to challenge for a place at the CHAN finals and ultimately to win the competition.
The idea is to match or better the achievements of Tanzania whose teams Young Africans and Simba Stars are regular strong contenders for Pan African titles and have also built a strong national team from predominantly locally based players.
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For the record, Tanzania qualified for Afcon 2025 with players drawn from Azam, Simba Stars, and Young Africans, and are still in the run for a place at World Cup 2026.
What we need to do is to maintain or improve on the quality of football so far displayed and also to ensure that we bring on board as many younger players as we can.
It is not a secret that the change in football quality has been brought about by the competition that MWOS and Scottland have brought onto the fray following huge financial investment in their clubs.
It would surely be dishonest to ignore the connection between the emergence of The Punters and Mabviravira, and the change of atmosphere in the Castle Lager Premier Soccer League.
Players are happy to perform after clubs were forced to review their salaries due to heavy perks that MWOS and Scottland are offering their own players after coming into the Premiership.
We hope that the huge financial pickings will be an attraction to players in neighbouring countries to come and play in Zimbabwe and thereby help to raise the standards further up there.
We also hope that with the excitement that has been generated, other corporate players will come in to compliment what Delta Beverages have done by sponsoring one or two knockout tournaments of their own.
The Castle Lager PSL Championship and the Chibuku Super Cup — which are reserved for PSL clubs only — are not enough for a country with big football ambitions
Surely, from what we have seen so far, our football is heading for better times, and what we only need to do is to stay on that positive direction.
*For your views, comments, and suggestions mkariati@gmail.com or WhatsApp on 071 0774 596 or call 0773 266 779.
