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Ray Bande
Senior Reporter
RODWELL Dhlakama has been in the Chibuku Super Cup finals on two occasions, and when the 2023 edition of the competition gets underway for GreenFuel tomorrow, the veteran gaffer will be anticipating nothing short of yet another fine run in the Premiership knockout cup competition.
The Billy Rautenbach-owned side will be out to roast Chicken Inn when the two teams clash in the Chibuku Super Cup at Luveve Stadium in Bulawayo, while their Manicaland peers, Manica Diamonds will clash against the preliminary round winner between Black Rhinos and Shaesham FC.
For Dhlakama, the Chibuku Super Cup glory is not an unfamiliar territory as he came within 90 minutes of clinching the silverware during his stint at Ngezi Platinum, and at one point agonisingly watched his team falter on penalty shootout lottery.
Dhlakama reckons it is now a different ball game altogether.
“I participated twice in Chibuku Super Cup and reached the finals on both occasions with the same team, Ngezi Platinum Stars. I remember playing Chicken Inn in the quarter finals, but now this is a different ball game, different team and different expectations.
“We always try to be the best, be it in the league or cup competitions, so in this assignment our projection is to win. We also want to try to enhance the performance of the players mostly those who were on the sidelines, widening our selection spectrum as we progress deeper in the season where the specific objective is to safeguard the status of our team,” said Dhlakama.
Meanwhile, Manica Diamonds’ coach, Jairos Tapera, whose club’s fine run in the Castle Lager Premiership has seen them sitting on third position on the table for a couple of weeks now, says the draw is a difficult one for his team.
“It is indeed a difficult draw for us. The thing is that we do not have much time to do the actual preparations since we will know our opponents after their preliminary play-offs,” he said.
Manica Diamonds will be anticipating the return of free scoring top man, Fortune Bhinzi after suffering an injury on the arm which sidelined him for five weeks now.
“Fortune Bhinzi started training last week. We will hear from both the medical and physical teams if he is ready for this week,” said Tapera.However, Tapera reckons the need to progress to the next stage of the Chibuku Super Cup competition.
“Just we have been doing in the league matches so far in the season, we will continue to try our best to win as many games in this competition as possible,” he said.
For the Chibuku Super Cup competition, the four lowest ranked teams on the latest Castle Lager Premiership standings at the time of the draw started the tournament in the preliminary round on Wednesday.
The winners will join 14 other top clubs in the first round.
First Round Draw:
Highlanders v Bulawayo Chiefs
Ngezi Platinum v Triangle United
Manica Diamonds v Black Rhinos
Dynamos v Simba Bhora
Chicken Inn v GreenFuel
FC Platinum v Yadah
Caps United v Hwange
Herentals v ZPC Kariba
Dates:
Preliminary Round: 09 August 2023
Round One: 12-13 August 2023
Quarter Finals: 23-24 September 2023
Semi Finals: 28-29 October 2023
Final: 25 November 2023.
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