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matches to prove they remain the dominant bull in the kraal.
The Green Machine might have given their best fight, after the capitulation of their last meeting at the same ground in a 0-3 mauling, but the brutal reality is that they have now failed to score, for the fifth League and Cup tie, in which Callisto Pasuwa has been in charge of the Glamour Boys.
DeMbare needed a penalty, converted by midfielder Devon Chafa, to secure the victory over a CAPS United side that started brightly and gave more, both in terms of blows traded and character displayed, than the poor way they had surrendered in the last encounter at the National Sports Stadium.
In the end they were denied by just the width of the post, in a close escape for the Glamour Boys, when skipper Tapiwa Khumbuyani glanced a header, in the last move of the match, towards goal and appeared to have pinched a point for his side, which would have been a deserved one, only to see the ball kiss the post and bounce clear.
Last year, after falling behind to a goal by Farai Mupasiri, CAPS United crumbled and conceded two more but while their response on Sunday was not vintage stuff, in a scrappy game that was a mockery to the status of the Harare Derby, it is to their eternal credit that they didn’t collapse and kept the contest alive.
Coach Taurai Mangwiro said there was such a fine line, between the two sides on Sunday, it was a contest that was going to be decided by who gets the lucky break and DeMbare got theirs, when they won the penalty, while fate messed up their golden moment when his captain’s header struck the wrong side of the post.
It’s on such little detail that champions are made and if there is something that will trouble Mangwiro this week, it’s not that his boys didn’t put in a decent shift and fought bravely for their brand and fans but the fact that, for the umpteenth time, they ended on the losing side in a fixture that is turning into a psychological nightmare for his men.
It was Mangwiro’s second straight Derby loss to the Old Enemy and while he will look, with some justification at this result as an improvement, the statistics will make grim reading because his team have now conceded four, and scored none, in two losses while he has been calling the shots.
He wasn’t available for the Mbada Diamonds Cup semi-final on neutral soil in Bulawayo but the result was the same, a crashing 0-3 defeat for his men.
For CAPS United, their failure to beat Dynamos in the league now stretches for 45 months, roughly three years and nine months, with the fruitless battle for a victory against their biggest city rivals starting with a 1-1 draw at Rufaro in August 2009.
For Bosso, their failure to beat DeMbare in the league now stretches exactly 73 months, slightly more than six years and counting, with the barren search for a victory starting with a home 1-2 loss to their rivals at Barbourfields in April 2007.
For FC Platinum, the richest club in the country whose arrival on the scene two years ago shook the domestic football landscape, their failure to beat Dynamos stretches back to 25 months, roughly two years, going back to their first tie, a 0-2 defeat at Rufaro, in April 2011.
In 26 league matches against their three biggest rivals, during that unbeaten run, Dynamos have won 16 matches, drawn 10 and lost none, scored 39 goals and conceded 13 for a haul of 58 points out of a possible 78.
The three teams, during that period, have only shared 10 points with FC Platinum getting only one, after a 2-2 draw in a four-goal thriller at Rufaro this season, CAPS United taking two from eight games and a possible 24 points and Highlanders taking seven from 13 games and a possible 39 points.
Dynamos have, incredibly, kept 15 clean sheets during that period and their biggest win was a 4-0 romp, at home, against Highlanders in the first fixture of their league duels in 2009.
That season, the Glamour Boys won back-to-back matches against their Bulawayo rivals for only the second time during the past six years when they have avoided defeat against their opponents.
The other clean sweep for Dynamos came in 2010 when they won 1-0 at home and were leading 2-1 in the reverse fixture, in the closing stages, when crowd trouble erupted and forced the abandonment of the game which they were eventually given on a 3-0 scoreline.
In their head-to-head encounters against Bosso, which is 13 league matches under review in that period, Dynamos have won six and seven have ended in draws, losing none, and have taken 25 points, from a possible 39, while the Bulawayo giants have taken seven points.
In their head-to-head matches against CAPS United, which is eight league matches under review in that period, DeMbare have won six matches and drawn two, losing none, and have taken 20 points from a possible 24.
CAPS United have taken two points in that period, a 1-1 draw in August 2009, when Nyasha Mushekwi scored his third goal against DeMbare, and a 0-0 draw the following year.
In their head-to-head matches against FC Platinum, which is five matches under review in that period, DeMbare have won four and drawn one and taken 13 out of a possible 15 points while the Zvishavane side have taken just a point.
There have been nine wins for Dynamos away from home in matches against Highlanders, CAPS United and FC Platinum during that period with three wins at Barbourfields, four wins against CAPS United and two wins at Mandava against FC Platinum.
There have been seven home wins for DeMbare in those matches against their three main rivals with three wins against Bosso, two victories against Makepekepe and two against FC Platinum.
Pasuwa’s record is even remarkable when taken in the context of the Harare Derby as he has been in charge of three league matches against CAPS United, after Lloyd Mutasa had won the two in 2011 before he left the club, and has won all of them, without even conceding a goal in the process.
And when you add the two Mbada Diamonds Cup matches, which he has been in charge against CAPS United and which he won without conceding a goal, you can see just how special his good record has been.
DeMbare have won their last five league matches against the Green Machine and CAPS United have only scored once during that period when Evans Gwekwerere thrust them into the lead at the giant stadium in July 2011 in the second half.
But Rodreck Mutuma struck a double, including the winner in the dying moments of the match, to give Dynamos a 2-1 victory in Mutasa’s final Harare Derby as coach of the team.
Online Reporter