With Premier League title aspirations in serious jeopardy, football giants Dynamos have an easier chance of finishing the current season with a major piece of silverware as they begin their campaign in the NetOne Top 8 EasyCall Cup against How Mine at Rufaro this afternoon.
BY MUNYARADZI MADZOKERE
One might have to go back more than half a decade to find a season in which the Glamour Boys — who have enjoyed the Zimbabwe football championship comforts for the past four year — failed to win a major trophy.
Currently lying third in the league, six points adrift of leaders Chicken Inn with just three matches left, Tonderayi Ndiraya’s men need nothing less than divine intervention to defend their title this time around.
Barely a couple of weeks ago the league champions were humbled 2-1 by Harare City in the final of the Chibuku Super Cup at the National Sports Stadium.
While they retain utmost control of their EasyCall Cup destiny, gold miners How Mine are no easy opponents as they have slowly built a giant killing reputation, especially in cup games, since they emerged onto the top flight football landscape three years ago.
At least Dynamos gaffer Ndiraya is aware of the threat posed by today’s opponents.
“It’s a very tough match because How Mine has a lot of experience and quality players and they are no pushovers. We recorded identical 1-0 wins in both matches against them in the league, so again we expect a very difficult match,” he told Standardsport.
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“This is a good chance for us to win silverware this season and we will do everything we can to make sure we progress to the next round. As a club, we are confident and we always want to win each and every match and competition that we play,” Ndiraya added.
How Mine will be remembered by the DeMbare faithful as that team which dumbed them out of the Mbada Diamonds Cup in the quarterfinals of the competition in 2013 in their first season among the big boys.
The gold miners went on to slay CAPS United in the semis before losing to Highlanders in the final to cap a brilliant run by the then premier league debutants.
Last year How Mine knocked Highlanders out of the One Wallet Cup and this year they again crushed Bosso out of the Chibuku in the first round.
DeMbare will be buoyed by the visitors’ awful league run which has seen them go for 11 games without recording a single win, which makes them unsure of their relegation safety this late in the season.
“As much as we want to survive relegation, we also want to go as far as possible in this competition,” said Makota.
“Dynamos are a big team but they can be beaten and we want to do it. It’s possible because we have experience in our squad. Some of our players have won the league before, some have won big cups, so they do not have stage fright,” he added.
Makota, who took over from Luke Masomere halfway through the season, was also excited by the fact that his team travel to the big match with no injury worries.
But DeMbare have a big decision to make concerning striker Rodreck Mutuma, who they could rest after playing with an injury in the past two games, a factor that has been fingered in the wake of his recent slump in form.
DeMbare, however, welcome back defender Elisha Muroyiwa who served a suspension last week and Sydney Linyama, who was injured.
