FC Platinum eye big splash

given all football lightweights a spring in their step.
Having come desperately close to winning the domestic Premiership in their first season in the top-flight league, only to lose a riveting contest by goal difference, FC Platinum embark on a different journey hoping for a similar impression.
The Zvishavane miners will take on Swazi champions Green Mamba, who have secured the expatriate services of Zimbabwean coach Lloyd Mutasa for this assignment, in a Champions League preliminary round, first leg tie here on Sunday.
And Gumbo, who has coached in Zimbabwe, Malawi and Botswana and, for good measure, won league titles in each of those countries, believes his troops are well equipped to navigate the challenging terrain.
Gumbo and his men have long recovered from the heartbreak that came with that agonising loss to Dynamos, with the pain of defeat worsened by the fact that ultimately it was an own goal at home that wrecked their season, and have recharged their batteries for a new challenge.
The arrival of a number of fresh faces, whose pedigree to make a mark is without question, has given FC Platinum a reason to believe and breathed life into limbs paralysed by the sheer scale of that monumental collapse last season.
Midfielder Allen Gahadzikwa’s acquisition from Motor Action, where his match-winning performances were a key part in the Mighty Bulls’ success that included a league championship, means that FC Platinum now have two of the three best players in the Zimbabwe Premiership last season.
Goalkeeper Tafadzwa Dube was one of the three top players in the Castle Soccer Stars of the Year poll and Washington Arubi, who won the crown last year, is the only jewel – from that three-man star cast – missing from the FC Platinum arsenal.
Dressed in black designer suits, all branded with the FC Platinum logo on the pockets of the jackets, snow white shirts and matching striped ties, the Zvishavane miners looked as professional as any traveling football team can ever hope to be.
The Zvishavane side arrived here yesterday, in two batches from Johannesburg, with the first group, which included Gumbo, touching down at Matshapa Airport around at about 12.30pm while the last group arrived later in the evening.
Most of the people, including the entire technical team, who arrived with the first group did not have their luggage, which included the club’s kit and training equipment, which was holed up in Johannesburg.
Among those who flew in with the first batch was club chairman, Thadious Zhou, who was keen to emphasise that FC Platinum was playing for the entire nation in this continental inter-club adventure.
Zhou said in the week that Zambia had given lightweights reason to believe again, by destroying the heavyweights to win the 2012 Nations Cup finals, FC Platinum, too, needed to believe that they could match any team in the competition.
Delegation leader, Brian Austin Chishanga, a Zifa Councillor, came with the second batch.
The first group was met by fierce furnace-like conditions here although forecasts point to conditions getting better in the coming days amid reports of a pending cyclone that could hit parts of this country this weekend.
But they must have been charmed by the warm reception from their Green Mamba hosts who appeared ready to go the extra mile just to ensure that the FC Platinum delegation was comfortable.
They were booked into the Lugogo Sun, a neat and spacious hotel, which looks quite popular with holiday makers. FC Platinum gaffer, Gumbo, knows this hotel well, having stayed here as coach of a merry band of Warriors, led by Peter Ndlovu, who struck a hat-trick in a five-goal demolition of Swaziland in a Cosafa Senior Challenge Cup match.
As fate might have it, Gumbo’s next mission after this assignment is to take the Warriors to a 2013 Nations Cup qualifier against Burundi.
Gumbo’s immediate concern is to give FC Platinum a good start in their Champions League adventure and he told The Herald yesterday that his team wasn’t in this competition just to make up the numbers.
“We have our own targets and the guys know it and the standards that we have set for ourselves are very high,” Gumbo said.
“With the calibre of players that we have right now, we have to set high standards for ourselves and we want to go very far and we are ready for that.”
By his own admission, Gumbo expected Swaziland to be hot but he never dreamt that it would be this boiling pot, which made everything feel like we were in the heart of a West African city, save for the cars that kept being driven on the left side of the road.
As part of their pre-season planning, FC Platinum – always a model club when it comes to investing in preparations – decided to have a training camp in Kariba where conditions, while probably as hot as what we endured here, tested the players to the limit.
Now Gumbo believes the wisdom of spending time in Kariba could come to help them on Sunday.
“It’s very hot here, I mean, you know our preparations in Kariba, we held them under the same conditions and I think what we did during our preparations, in pre-season, could come in handy for us,” said Gumbo.
“I knew Swaziland would be hot but not as hot as this because it’s like we are in West Africa right now but I think the boys should be fine.
“We could get some benefits from our camp in Kariba.”
During the trip from the airport to the team’s hotel, Gumbo’s assistant, Tendai Chikuni, spoke at length about the physical examination that the players went trough during their training camp in Kariba.
All those hours spent testing the bodies in extremely hot conditions will now be needed as FC Platinum try to make a big splash in their first game at this level.
Gumbo would have preferred a scenario where his team traveled from Harare to Manzini as a single batch but, with light aircraft servicing the Johannesburg/Manzini route, that certainly was not possible.
There was a small price to pay for arriving in two batches, with yesterday’s training session being cancelled.
“Coming in two batches is not ideal,” said Gumbo.
“We have had to cancel today’s (yesterday) training session because the other guys are coming in later. So we will loosen up at the hotel later in the evening but we hope to training twice at the match venue before the game.”