Just a few days before the MTN/FAZ Super League begins, technical reshuffles followed at Zambia Army sponsored side Green Buffaloes. Head coach Bilton Musonda and AFCON winning captain Christopher Katongo who was part of the GBFC technical bench were shown the exit door.
The lead to the appointment of current Under 20 coach Charles Bwale to the position of head coach. Bwale has been an understudy for quiet a long time at Green Buffaloes.
Bwale comes in to replace a coach has been at the Buffaloes technical bench for a long time. Musonda was assistant coach to former Chipolopolo and current Baroka coach Wedson Nyirenda when he was at Green Buffaloes before he went to coach in Mozambique.
During Bilton Musonda’s reign he managed to finish fourth on the FAZ Super League table in 2015, their best league placing since finishing 3rd behind Zesco in 2010.
Musonda capped his 2015 season with Buffaloes by leading them to their debut Barclays Cup triumph where they won 2-0 after beating Nkwazi- who were coached by another 2015 coach nominee Elijah Chikwanda.
Furthermore, Musonda got the best over his ex-boss Lwandamina in the Barclays Cup after eliminating Zesco 1-0 at the semifinal stage to deny the 2015 league champions and Barclays Cup champions an opportunity of a back-to-back double.
Buffaloes went on to finish fifth in 2016 behind Power Dynamos, Nkana, Zesco and champions Zanaco. This followed a fourth placed finish in 2017 when the club accumulated a total of 70 points, missing out on the league title to Zesco United by 4 points.
With the increase in the number of slots for Zambian teams in CAF Interclub competitions, Buffaloes bounced back to play the CAF Confederation Cup with was cup short in the preliminary round by Al Masry of Egypt via a 5-2 aggregate.
2018 saw a rise in the league finish for the Army sponsored side, Green Buffaloes found themselves in third position with 21 wins, 11 draws and 6 losses with accounted for 74 points, which meant they were just six points shy of league winners, Zesco United (80).
The team maintained its CAF Confederation Cup presence for the 2018/19 season, for a second consecutive season. There was literally no reinforcement during the CAF player registration window, Buffaloes literally went with the same squad that was eliminated by Al Masry.
They started the first game at home against South Sudan’s Al Merreikh Juba whom they beat 2-0 before drawing 0-0 away to progress to the next round via 2-0 aggregate. The next challenge was to get past CS Cfaxien.
It was going to be difficult for Buffaloes with less players motivation and talk of players not being paid their winning bonuses. Travel arrangements were not properly planned as the team was seen traveling for duty in groups.
This translated in the first defeat handed to Buffaloes by Cfaxien, 4-1 in the first leg. In the second leg in Lusaka GBFC beat the Cfaxien 1 goal to nil to bow out 4-2 on aggregate.
With this consistence shown by Bilton Musonda in the past two seasons, many Green Buffaloes fans were hopeful that the Executive will maintain the technical bench and push for the title until the news broke that Musonda and Katongo were axed from the bench. (With some sections of the media alleging that it was because of the duo talking on behalf of the players for the unpaid allowances).
As the news season dawns, the man at the helm of 1984Â League Champions is Charles Bwale, who is a former Green Buffaloes player and current Under 20 coach. He has also worked with the senior Zambia Women National team. He managed to take the Copper Queens to the 2014 AWCON in Namibia despite failing to make it out of the group.
Bwale was elevated to U20 head coach after Numba Numamba left his role as U20 head coach and was in charge of the team that competed in last year’s U20 Youth COSAFA Cup tournament. Bwale guided the Junior Chipolopolo to a fourth finished in the tournament that was held on the Copperbelt.
Bwale has worked with many upcoming talents and maybe this will be a reign that will see the promotion of young blood to the senior squad at Green Buffaloes from the many feeder clubs under Green Buffaloes like Young Buffaloes and Copperbelt Green Buffaloes among others.
Well, it will be quite interesting to see if the changes at GBFC’s technical bench will yield the desired results of the command. Does Bwale have the pedigree to equal or outshine the works of Bilton Musonda?
Well that questions will be answered in a few weeks to come but Green Buffaloes will have to wait a little before facing Zesco United in their opening Super League match because Zesco will be taking on Nkana on Saturday (tomorrow) in the Charity Shield in Kitwe, as a result the game has been postponed to a later date. Most likely their first run in the Transitional Season will be against newly promoted side Prison Leopards in Kabwe on 2nd February.
