BY MUNYARADZI MADZOKERE
Dynamos coach Lloyd Chigowe is pushing for the Premier Soccer League club to have a developmental side playing in the lower leagues so that the financially rickety giants may do away with the culture of holding mass trials in search of new players.
After helping Dynamos survive relegation at the 11th hour last season, Chigowe has been tasked with building a competitive team from a shoe string budget.
And for the second time in three seasons, Dynamos, arguably the biggest football club in Zimbabwe, have had to resort to holding trials to acquire player on a free.
Luckily, this time the trials attracted a number of players from West and Central Africa, probably a ripple effect from Christian Joel Epoupa’s success at the club two seasons ago.
Chigowe believes that having a side playing in lower divisions will immensely benefit the club.
“It’s being finalised. Already the youth coaches have been asked to look at the players who will do business there and something is happening. I am not sure what it will be but definitely we will have a slot in Division 2 or Division 1,” he told Standardsport.
Already other premier league teams such as Bulawayo giants Highlanders, champions FC Platinum as well as platinum miners Ngezi have teams competing in lower leagues.
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This year Dynamos attracted close to a 100 trialists, most of whom showed potential and some who failed to make the senior team may have to settle for lower league football.
Chigowe may also have had the Dynamos junior team in mind which has been doing extremely well in the past four seasons in the Harare league under his tutelage.
A lot of them would break into the main team.
“It means that we will be getting our players directly from that team and we won’t need to go around holding mass trials. Dynamos have always been producing a lot of good players but eventually we end up buying them back if we don’t sign them with the first team.
“The idea is to maintain our talented youngsters such that we have a feeder team so we won’t need to resort to trials or go on to the market unless it’s for an outstandingly good player,” Chigowe said.
Negotiations are currently ongoing to ascertain the league that a Dynamos B side will be competing in and Chigowe reckons that the record local league title holders will start to reap the rewards next season.
Chigowe also had his say on the influx of foreign players at the club this season, which he believes is a reflection of how big the club is in the country.
“Dynamos are the biggest football club in this country whether one likes it or not and naturally we have to lead the way in terms of revolutionising the game. South African clubs benefited a lot from foreigners and who are we not to follow the trend?” he said.
DeMbare have already signed three foreigners in Ghanaian Robert Sackey, Ngandu Mangala from the DRC as well as former Cameroonian youth international Herve Vincent Mbega. The club had also reserved a slot for an unnamed player from Ivory Coast.
