Nkosilathi Sibanda and Innocent Kurira in BULAWAYO
IT’S now official – Highlanders have got rid of Baltermar Brito after a one-year experiment with the Brazilian coach.
Zimpapers Sport exclusively revealed the divorce last week.
Brito’s contract will not be renewed at the end of the year after his team suffered a horror second half of the campaign.
He will now concentrate fully on his job as coach of the Warriors although this development will pile pressure on him given there will be many who will doubt if he can coach the national team when he was deemed not good enough for Bosso.
In a statement yesterday, Bosso said:
“The club would like to inform its members of the departure of coach Brito and assistant Antonio Torres.
“Coach Brito and Torres’ contracts end on 31 December 2023, the club and the two coaches have mutually agreed not to extend their stay with the club beyond the stated period.
“The club thanks Mr Brito and Mr Torres for their time with the club and also wishes them all the best in their new endeavours.”
The Bosso leadership were not amused by the team’s sensational collapse in the second half of the championship race.
“One more beautiful chapter of my life is done,” said Torres.
“Highlanders, such a big institution, it was a big pleasure to me belong to that family, very passionate supporters that are really the heart of that institution.
“We did our best, 22 unbeaten games proves how hard we tried.”
In the end, Bosso finished the championship race in fifth place with 14 wins, 13 draws and seven losses.
Their points’ tally of 55 is better than last season where they got 51 points and still finished fifth.
But, everyone at the club knows that this was a golden chance, to win their first league title since 2006, which was lost. Many feel the challenges started when Brito was named Warriors coach.