By Robson Sharuko
Harare giants Dynamos are poised to consolidate their status as Southern Africa’s most successful football club, when it comes to winning domestic league titles, if they can complete a fairytale comeback by winning their 18th crown on Super Sunday.
The Glamour Boys are odds-on favourites to win the Castle Lager Premiership title, to complete an amazing comeback after they plunged 10 points adrift of the leaders just 10 games ago, which will make them the first club in Southern Africa to win 18 domestic league titles.
DeMbare have won more league titles than any other team in the entire Southern African region and an 18th crown, should they seal the deal against Kiglon on Sunday, will open quite a big gap between them and the chasing pack in this part of the continent.
Dynamos have been sitting on 17 league titles, since ending a 10-year-wait for the premier prize four years ago, and an expected triumph on Sunday will take their haul to three trophies better than Angola’s Petro Atletico who have won 15 league titles in their country.
Petro Atletico have been Angola’s premier club and provided a home for stars such as Akwa, Manucho, Ze Kallanga, Lebo Lebo and Lama.
The special nature of Dynamos’ record-breaking league title haul is put into context by the fact that the Glamour Boys, should they triumph on Sunday, will have won as many championships as the combined haul of the Soweto giants, Kaizer Chiefs and Orlando Pirates.
The Amakhosi have won 10 league titles and the Buccaneers have eight league titles, bringing their tally to 18, and Dynamos are set to take their tally of titles to 18 should they be crowned champions on Sunday.
Chiefs won five league titles, in the racially segregated National Premier Soccer League between ’71 and ’84, Pirates won four titles before the Amakhosi won three National Soccer League titles and the Buccaneers took just one title between ’85 and ’95.
Chiefs have won two titles, in the era of the modern Premier Soccer League, which started in ’96, to bring their overall league tally to 10 while Pirates have won three PSL titles, including the last one in May this year, to take their haul to eight titles.
While Pirates have dwarfed Dynamos in terms of achievements on the continent, having won the African Champions League once, the mere fact that the Glamour Boys have also been competitive in Africa’s flagship inter-club competition, to add to their remarkable achievements at home, demonstrates their pedigree as a genuinely competitive football club.
Dynamos have probably the smallest budget, and certainly the least resources, of all the teams that have dominated their domestic championship in the major leagues of Southern Africa.
But what the Glamour Boys lack in resources, they make up for it in their powerful will to succeed with the players who wear the famous blue-and-white strip constantly finding themselves being pushed to go the extra mile by a club tradition, where failure is alien, and a passionate support base.
The Harare giants’ sensational comeback story in the championship race this year, when pitted against a rival powered by the immense riches of their parent mining company, to overhaul a 10-point deficit and grab the initiative in the penultimate game of the season, tells the true story of their resilience.
“Nothing is done yet and we have to be careful and remain focussed when we play our last game on Sunday,” said Dynamos coach, Callisto Pasuwa, this week as he faces his finest hour in a career that, until his surprise elevation into the hot seat this year, was being built in the background of being a lieutenant to a number of head coaches.
“When you look at Dynamos, it has a history of never giving up and you can see it in this team and our defence, you have to give them credit, has been excellent and in the three big games we have played, one after the other, against Hwange, Motor Action and FC Platinum, we haven’t conceded a goal.
“The spirit in our team has been excellent.”
DeMbare, backed by their strong defence, only conceded two goals – in six matches against teams in the Top Four in the Premiership (FC Platinum, Hwange and Motor Action) – with both goals coming in just one match against the Mighty Bulls at Rufaro in a 0-2 loss in April.
In five other league matches – two against Hwange, two against FC Platinum and one against Motor Action – the Glamour Boys’ punishing defence were unyielding and came out without being breached in 450 minutes of intense action that included games at the Colliery and at Mandava.
Dynamos did not concede a goal, in three matches against FC Platinum this season, two in the league and one in the Mbada Diamonds Cup, scoring four goals against their rivals and winning all the three games in their head-to-head contests.
Having won 2-0 in a league match at Rufaro, they edged FC Platinum 1-0 at Mandava, becoming the first team to inflict a defeat on the miners in that ground in the Premiership, before also winning 1-0 on neutral soil at Barbourfields in a Mbada Diamonds Cup semi-final tie.
FC Platinum failed to win against the top two teams in the capital, after losing 1-2 to Motor Action at Callies, before being held to a goalless draw by the Mighty Bulls at Mandava to collect just one, out of a possible 12 points, in head-to-head clashes against Harare’s best performing clubs.
In head-to-head clashes, featuring the four top teams, FC Platinum are only in third place after winning just two of their six league matches, both wins coming against Hwange, drawing one and losing three.
If Dynamos win the league championship on Sunday, they will move into the year, marking the eve of their Golden Jubilee celebrations, with the right to brag as the most successful club, when it comes to domestic league championship success stories, in Southern Africa.
Malawi’s most popular football club, Big Bullets, are in third place with 13 league crowns. Bullets have six other league titles, won between ’69 and ’80, but are not considered when it comes to the auditing of national titles because they were success stories from the regional Blantyre league.
DC Motemba Pembe and AS Vita Club, both from the DRC, have 12 league titles each while four-time African champions, TP Mazembe, have 11 league titles. Mbabane Highlanders also have 12 league titles in Swaziland.
Nkana lead the race in Zambia with 11 league titles, the same number as Township Rollers in Botswana, while Chiefs lead the way in South Africa with 10 league titles with Costa do Sol and Ferroviario sharing the spoils in Mozambique with nine league titles each. Matlama leads the way in Lesotho, with eight league titles, while Black Africa have five crowns to top the charts in Namibia.
