WITH the scars of that humiliating 3-1 drubbing in Zvishavane barely a week ago still dripping blood, Harare giants Dynamos return to face their conquerors FC Platinum in the Chibuku Super Cup quarterfinals at the National Sports Stadium Sunday afternoon.
BY BRIAN NKIWANE
Spotting a BancABC black pair of shorts and a blue golf T-shirt, complemented by matching Adidas sandals, Dynamos coach Tonderai Ndiraya appeared satisfied with his team’s preparations ahead of the make-or-break encounter with the platinum miners today. He did appear like a man on a revenge mission.
Together with returning left back Ocean Mushure, who had a scintillating performance against WhaWha on Wednesday, Ndiraya had no kind words for FC Platinum.
The sight of DeMbare players taking turns to practise set pieces and penalties was a clear indicator that Ndiraya intends to throw everything at FC Platinum.
Dynamos lost to the Zvishavane based outfit last week, but both Ndiraya and Mushure refused to read much into that match, saying this time around it was a different ball game.
“It’s always a difficult scenario to play one team in a space of a week, but here we are, we have to fulfill the fixture. In that match, FC Platinum played well but I also feel we played well despite letting in soft goals. But now this is a different game; to spice it up, it’s a Cup game and for us to be able to go to the next round, we have to beat them. By 5pm on Sunday, we should have qualified to the next round,” Ndiraya said.
He added: “The good thing is, after that defeat we had another game in between that we won convincingly against WhaWha. So we are not reading much into that match anymore.
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We will throw everything at them.”
With a banana smile, Ndiraya also spoke about the match venue and their 12th man.
“The good thing is we will be playing at home. Everyone knows how the terraces look like each time we play in Harare,” Ndiraya said.
He said he had a clean bill of health in his camp, with the exception of three players who had been on the injury list for some time now.
They include skipper Augustine Mbara, Artwell Mukandi and young Kudzanai Nyakasa.
Mushure, who missed the Mandava encounter serving suspension, had no kind words for their opponents as well.
“As players, we know very well what is at stake. We have been discussing this on our own as players.
We even talked to players like Rodrick Mutuma to try and give him all the support. We told him that he has been scoring for us on crucial times, but there is no reason why he should put himself under pressure to score — we play and win as a team.
Otherwise everyone is ready for FC Platinum,” Mushure said
