By Makomborero Mutimukulu
Lloyd Mutasa has put in some hard graft into turning the Dynamos Class of 2017 into something close to resembling a football team. However, his effort and tears can only take the team to a certain point.
And from that point onwards the responsibility to spur DeMbare rests on the players, with the older guys in that dressing room expected to step to the plate and impart the Chazunguza spirit to the greenhorns.
Sadly for Mutasa and the team’s mythical seven million fans, Dynamos don’t have the go to man when the going gets tough.
The team is yearning for a natural leader, that guy who keeps going, the guy who keeps on believing even when everything else is pointing southwards. Ocean Mushure is the captain but he has been dogged by injuries.
Denver Mukamba, Obey Mwerahari and Masimba Mambare have been to physiotherapists more than they have been on the park and Mutasa has been forced to chop and change his stating XI every match day. However, one elder statesman has been forever present but has been consistent in disappointing.
The joke at the National Sports Stadium last Thursday – as Dynamos were beaten by How Mine – was that DeMbare need to prepare for the day when the Tanzanian club that has splashed big money on Elisha Muroiwa will scream “we was robbed.”
Muroiwa, together with Wisdom Mutasa, is set to join Singida United next month but the defender has been horrible since the beginning of the year. His poor form is showing little signs of taking a positive turn.
The defender is one of the elders in the Dynamos dressing room and even wore the armband in the 1-0 reverse against How Mine but his performances have not matched the respect he is accorded. Muroiwa is mistiming tackles like he is paid to do so.
For a man who did business at the 2017 Africa Cup of Nations, the 28-year-old defender is choosing the wrong way to say adieu to Dynamos before he joins the Ligi Kuu Bara, Tanzania’s topflight league.
Against a How Mine outfit that looked ordinary, DeMbare yearned for a leader on the park and most of the young lads would have looked up to Muroiwa – the captain of the day – for leadership.
But Alas the man who was supposed to point them in the right direction was directionless and epitomised it all by being outmuscled by Toto Banda, the How Mine goal scorer.
Without a leader on the park, Emmanuel Mandiranga, with the famous number seven shirt, continuously overran the ball and Peace Makaha appeared lost in a defensive midfield role.
Takunda Sadiki continued to be Takunda Sadiki, playing in patches and missing easy chances. One of the greatest mysteries at DeMbare is Sadiki’s continued inclusion in the starting XI by Mutasa.
With the rate things are going at Dynamos, the club’s executive and fans will need to be patient with this project.
It has some flashes of brilliance but like Kelvin Kaindu noted in midweek, this Dynamos team is ordinary and without a swashbuckling DeMbare, our game is poorer. The Sunday Mail
