Dynamos to dehorn Rhinos

Reigning Castle Lager Premier Soccer League champions Dynamos are targeting an immediate return to winning ways when they take on army side Black Rhinos this weekend.

The Glamour Boys, who are currently in third position on the log standings, battled to a nil-all draw against How Mine in Bulawayo last Saturday, a result that meant the Kalisto Pasuwa-coached side had won just one of their last five away games.

However, this Sunday DeMbare return to their home turf, the National Sports Stadium, a venue they are gradually turning into a fortress after struggling at the giant arena earlier in the season.

Having lost two of their first three home games at the National Sports Stadium, the Glamour Boys have struck a rich vein of form at their home ground in recent weeks, winning their last three league games.

Dynamos beat FC Platinum on May 21, edged Triangle United on June 8, before another narrow victory over Highlanders.

All three games ended 1-0.

And while the Harare giants are likely to be without head coach Kalisto Pasuwa, who is currently attending the CAF A Licence coaching course in the capital, Dynamos assistant coach Tichaona Diya, who will stand in for the former along with Philemon Mutyakureva, insists his charges will remain focused on their clash with Black Rhinos.

Diya told The Zimbabwe Mail that the Glamour Boys are taking the game against Black Rhinos seriously as there were no longer small teams in the top flight, but are  not afraid of the threat the army side poses.

"We are approaching the game in the same way we would for any other league game. There are no longer any small teams in the league, so our aim is to collect maximum points and keep our target of defending the title on track.

"It's a tough league, hence the need for us to utilise home advantage, something that we have been telling the players all along," said Diya.

The game against the army side comes just a week before the Harare derby, but Diya said the impending fixture against their bitter rivals would not distract his charges' focus ahead of the clash with Rhinos.

Incidentally, Rhinos come into the match against Dynamos on the back of a 3-1 defeat by Highlanders at Barbourfields Stadium last Sunday.

"Our focus is on this game on Sunday and it is only after that when we will have to prepare for the game against CAPS United. We are aware of the danger posed by Rhinos especially coming from a defeat, so they will try to get a good result in this game but we are not worried," said the former DeMbare goalkeeper.

Dynamos will, in addition to Pasuwa, be missing the services of a number of their players who are out due to different issues, namely Walter Mukanga, Simba Sithole, Tafadzwa Rusike and Masimba Mambare, who is still to recover from the knee injury he sustained in a Bob@90 Cup semi-final match against Harare City in February.

But Diya is unfazed at the prospect of dealing with a depleted squad.

"We have several players that we will be missing due to injuries and Mukanga is out with malaria, so we will have to use the other players that we registered and we have a large pool of good players available, so we are not really worried.

"We are not sure if the coach is going to be released from the course, but we had already made plans way before he attended, so I do not think that his absence will have any effect on our performance because we did not make any changes to the programme that we had planned together with him," said Diya.