Dembare breaks another record

DYNAMOS president Kenny Mubaiwa described the defeat to Highlanders as heartbreaking, but maintains they will not press panic buttons even as their Castle Lager Premiership challenge continues to crumble.

Dembare suffered their fourth loss in eight games this season and broke another record for the wrong reasons against Highlanders at Rufaro on Saturday.

For 10 years, the Harare giants hadn't lost to their old rivals in the league, but goals from rookie forward Prince Dube and defender Bruce Kangwa condemned them to a 2-0 defeat. DeMbare have been poor this year, especially at their Rufaro fortress where they have neither won a game nor scored a goal in four home assignments.

They sit on 12th position with eight points from as many games. They lost for the first time in the league to CAPS United in seven years, they also lost to FC Platinum at Rufaro for the first time since the side was promoted in 2011 and then failed to safeguard a 10 year-record in the league against Highlanders.

Ironically, DeMbare had last lost a league match to Highlanders by an identical scoreline in 2006 when the Bulawayo giants went on to win the title under Methembe Ndlovu.

Mubaiwa yesterday admitted they are having a dismal run but he said they will not fiddle with their coaching department which is currently led by Lloyd Mutasa. Mutasa was given five games to prove himself after succeeding Portuguese coach Paulo Jorge Silva but he has so far lost two and won one.

"It's not good to be losing to our rivals like this, worse still there has been a long-standing jinx that ha been broken this year. It's a very painful ordeal because for 10 years we had not lost to Highlanders," said Mubaiwa.

"Our supporters are not used to this. If it was Highlanders who had lost this game I don't think it was not going to be such a huge heartbreak because they had become used to it.

"So I am trying to imagine how our supporters are feeling right now. I want to challenge the technical team and the players, let's play for our fans, our sponsors and the other stakeholders.

"But there is no need to panic at this point. We are going through a very rough patch which we strongly believe will come to pass. We have experienced such difficult moments before and still managed to come back.

"The positive thing is that our football is not that bad, we just need to improve on our scoring.

I still believe we can make it because we have only played eight games and we still have 22 more which translates to 66 points." Dynamos have not scored a goal at home in 360 minutes of Premiership action and on Saturday their strikers continued with the barren run as Farai Mupasiri and the out-of-sorts Richard Kawondera failed to break their ducks.

Kelvin Bulaji and Evans Gwekwerere were also given a run but the goals did not come.

DeMbare's prospects this year look dim as they now trail log leaders FC Platinum by 12 points while Highlanders moved to within three points of the pacesetters.

This is one of DeMbare's worst performance after eight games in a season.

Last year they had 14 points at this stage after winning four, drawing two and losing two.

"I think we played well against Highlanders but we are still facing that same problem of failing to score. We had so many chances which could have at least earned us a point.

"Highlanders got theirs and they scored. But we are not scoring goals. Our players should pull up their socks.

"The technical team and the players should know that their job is to play football to entertain the fans and to bring results as well," said Mubaiwa.

But DeMbare's loss on Saturday was Bosso's finest hour in the past 10 years.

It might have taken them a decade and six different coaches who included Reuben Tsengwa, Mohammad Fathi, Mkhuphali Masuku, Kelvin Kaindu and Bongani Mafu but Dutchman Erol Akbay finally guided them to victory.

"If you win a big match everyone is happy. This was an important game for both teams but now it's even more important for Highlanders because of that win," said Akbay.

"These guys had waited for 10 years for this to happen and finally we are celebrating together. It's a happy day for us, we have won an important game.

"I feel proud to be part of the Highlanders family."

Highlanders returned to second place on the log standings with 17 points.

The Dutch coach praised his charges for committing themselves to the team's cause.

Akbay was impressed by his team's response after they were held to a disappointing 1-1 home draw by Harare City at Barbourfields last week.

He said the Bosso players were determined to end the jinx.

"There was nothing out of this world that we did before the match. For me and the players, this is the kind of game that you don't need any special motivation.

"Everybody knew what was at stake, they all knew what they needed to do and they also knew how important it was to win that game. So they pushed hard.

"Dynamos were pressing in the first half and I had expected them to do that. So we just played our normal game and made sure they didn't score.

"But in the second half they gave us some spaces to play football and the boys did well," said Akbay.