DYNAMOS captain Murape Murape and defender Partson Jaure have warned Botswana’s Mochudi Centre Chiefs that they will not take today’s CAF Champions League preliminary round second leg lightly.
BY HENRY MHARA IN GABORONE , BOTSWANA.
The match will take place at the National Stadium today. Kickoff is 4pm instead of the initially announced time of 3pm.
Members of the Chiefs team have confirmed the match is on at 1600hrs.
DeMbare romped to a 3-0 victory at the National Sports Stadium in Harare a week ago in the reverse fixture, to put one leg into the first round.
Washington Pakamisa (brace) and Masimba Mambare, making his debut for Dynamos on the day, got the goals for the Harare giants, all coming in the second half.
Many are predicting that Dynamos will take a conservative approach in this match, due to the huge advantage.
But Murape, who came in as a substitute late in the game in Harare, said the team is determined to make just as big an impact as they did in the first leg.
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“It doesn’t matter about the first leg,” the veteran midfielder said. “We have to go into the game thinking it’s a new game, even though we have three goals.
“We need to try and win it and qualify for the second round. We are determined to qualify for the mini-league. That is our target this year. But to do that, we have to approach every game with a positive mind. The first leg is now like the first half of this tie and we are playing the second half tomorrow [today]. We scored three goals in the second half so if we are not careful they can also do the same here. We need to be very focussed. We are here to win, not to preserve the gains from the first leg,” added Murape.
While the Kalisto Pasuwa-coached team racked in three goals with the forward players naturally getting all the glory, it is the team’s solid defence that has been doing most of the job for this club in recent times.
Central to that success has been the performance of Partson “Minister of Defence” Jaure.
The cool defender’s stellar performances in the past two seasons for Dynamos has not only earned him a national team call-up, but also the captain’s armband in the Ian Gorowa coached side.
“They are a very good side but I don’t think they are capable of scoring a goal, let alone overturning the first leg deficit. Our plan is to score early to kill their spirits. It’s up to the strikers to score because at the back I don’t think we will have any problem in shutting them out. We will have to attack them because the moment we allow them to come at us, we will be in trouble because we are bound to make mistakes. I’m very confident that we will not concede but we will get more goals.”
The team had their first training session on Friday afternoon, some few hours after arriving here after a long trip from Harare.
The players took a rest yesterday morning but trained at the initial match venue, University of Botswana in the afternoon.
They were however made to wait for 45 minutes before they started training as the ground was occupied by students who were having a sports day.
Pasuwa said he would not make many changes from the team that played in Harare.
Simba Sithole and Tafadzwa Rusike missed the first match due to injuries but are fit and could play a part in the match.
Dynamos probable line-up: G Chigova, O Machapa, O Mushure, P Jaure, S Linyama, S Alimenda, C Sekete, R Chitiyo, M Mambare, T Muparati, W Pakamisa.
