Dembare's foreign players yet to get international clearances

Dynamos are still waiting for the clearance papers of their foreign trio of Herve Vincent Mbega, Ngahan Claude Junior (both Cameroon) and Robert Sackey (Ghana) as the 2019 Castle Lager Premiership season fast approaches.

The Glamour Boys, who are rebuilding under Lloyd "Mablanyo" Chigowe, signed the three West Africans and Congolese international Ngandu Mangala to strengthen their squad after losing most of their players, who did duty last season.

And while Mangala has already secured his clearance and has been featuring prominently in DeMbare's pre-season matches, his new teammates - Mbega, Junior and Sackey are yet to secure their international clearances forcing Chigowe to keep them on the sidelines.

"Their immigration papers have not yet been sorted out. So we don't believe in breaking the law, we want their papers to be sorted out before they can compete. The fact that they are not yet playing shows that we have got depth and we will last the distance," Chigowe said.

"I'm sure the management is sorting all that out and hopefully it will be ready before the season starts." Dynamos have shown some positive signs during this off-season and last week dispatched CAPS United 2-0 in an invitational pre-season Charity Cup which saw several youngsters put up impressive performances.

The Glamour Boys take their pre-season preparations to Gweru this afternoon, where they face new boys TelOne in another friendly match. Chigowe, however, is not reading much into the pre-season matches and wants his boys to continue working hard in preparation for more difficult matches to come.      

"You must not read too much into pre-season matches. We must never think that winning the Charity Shield is a measure of what we can achieve in the upcoming season. We must work and that is what we are doing at the moment," he said.

"We just want to enjoy ourselves and make sure that we don't fight relegation." Chigowe revealed that what impressed him most thus far is the spirit and attitude being shown by his youthful side.
"The spirit has always been good. I think we have a disciplined hungry group of players, who are prepared to fight to honour the badge. They want to achieve a lot and God willing they will achieve their objectives and targets," Chigowe noted.

"I think the motivation is already there within the boys and one of them has already been called to the Under-23 squad which is motivating itself that if you do well you can be recognised. And we have got quite a number of these youngsters who can represent the country.

"The leadership that is being provided by Duduza (Edward Sadomba) and Jimmy Tigere is good enough to see these guys keep their feet on the ground and know that there is a lot of fighting to be done."

On his part Chigowe feels his long experience working with the junior teams made his job easier to assemble a competitive side.
"I believe talent identification is a gift that is not given to everyone or every coach. I believe we selected a very good group of youngsters. There is a lot of competition like you can see here and nobody is guaranteed a first team jersey that's how stiff the competition is, anyone can play," he said.

Meanwhile, CAPS United travel to Bindura tomorrow for a friendly match against newly-promoted Mushowani Stars as they intensify their pre-season preparations ahead of the new season.

CAPS United coach Lloyd Chitembwe expressed satisfaction with how his team is slowly shaping up ahead of the start of the season.