Ali Sadiki upbeat

Paul Mundandi in ZVISHAVANE
FC Platinum winger Ali Sadiki feels his team have the advantage going into the BancABC Sup8r Cup final against town rivals Shabanie on Saturday. The winners will walk away with US$120 000 and a full house is expected to witness the derby. “This is our first meaningful cup final since 2011 and currently we are in rich form. Our strike force went to Ndola and brought a positive result.

“All the players in our team deserve to be playing in the national team, but it’s a pity that the national team coach can’t call us all into the Warriors.

“We need the US$120 000 because the money is more than what the PSL champions get at the end of the season and we want to take the cash.
“It will, however, be tough to play Shabanie because we meet every day and nobody wants to lose because whoever loses will be called mupfanha and even if there was no money it was still going to be war playing against Shabanie,” said Sadiki.

Joel Ngodzo has also regained the form that forced FC Platinum to pay US$60 000 for his services.
Players at FC Platinum are paid US$1 000 a month as salaries and US$400 as winning bonuses.

Their rivals struggle to raise US$300 camping allowance for the whole team, an amount not enough for the winning bonus of one FC Platinum player.

But that’s the beauty of football that even poor boys like Shabanie have a chance to strike it rich and that’s the reason they are in the final of such a big tournament.