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Innocent Kurira, innocent.kurira@chronicle.co.zw
ZIMBABWE international striker Tawanda Maswanhise is in line to win a successive Player of the Month accolade with his Scottish side Motherwell FC. He will face competition from teammates Apostolos Stamatelopoulos, Dan Casey, and Shane Blaney.
Maswanhise registered a goal and an assist in Motherwell’s 2-2 draw against Rangers in the Scottish Premier League last Sunday. He started the match and played the entire game, assisting Motherwell’s first goal scored by Stamatelopoulos in the 16th minute. Maswanhise found the back of the net with a great turn-and-shot effort inside the box. Motherwell went to the break leading 2-0 but conceded twice in the second half to settle for a draw. Maswanhise now has four goals and three assists in fourteen league appearances this season.
The Warriors international was voted the November Player of the Month and is now in line to win the December award. Voting can be done on the Motherwell Facebook page.
Last year, Maswanhise made his debut for the Warriors in their 2-0 loss to Lesotho in a 2026 Fifa World Cup qualifier. In April, Maswanhise was on trial at a lower-division English club, Stockport City, as he targeted a deal.
The 21-year-old winger spent over 10 years in the Leicester City development structures and has made huge progress at the Foxes. Maswanhise has previously won the Leicester development side Player of the Year award.
The youngster, who was born in Zimbabwe and moved to the United Kingdom at the age of two, has previously been targeted by Warriors coaches, including Norman Mapeza, before the 2021 Afcon finals in Cameroon. Maswanhise made his Development Squad debut against West Ham United in March 2021, while also being named on the bench for a Premier League fixture against Manchester United at Old Trafford two months later. His involvement for the Under-18s increased across 2020/21 too, with 20 league appearances bringing six assists and a goal.
The 2021/22 season was another campaign of progress. Starting on a high following his impressive showings with the first team in pre-season training, the 19-year-old looked comfortable in League 2 and the Papa Johns Trophy, featuring in all 29 of the Development Squad’s competitive fixtures. Making his mark on the score-sheet 10 times in League 2, the attacker, who usually plays off the left but can also be deployed down the middle, netted several important goals, including some superb individual efforts nominated for the Club’s Goal of the Month competitions. In the 2022/23 season, the Zimbabwean again made inroads, finding the net in all of City’s opening six fixtures across two competitions.
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