Online Reporter
Robson Sharuko
Editor
IN another year, there will be no question about which game will be bigger and will attract the biggest number of fans.
Dynamos versus Highlanders and MWOS versus Scottland!
The answer would be simple – the DeMbare/Bosso showdown, also known as the Battle of Zimbabwe, would be the easy answer.
But, then, this is not just another year on the domestic Premiership scene.
And, it’s very likely that the MWOS/Scottland showdown at Ngoni on Saturday will be a bigger game, in terms of just about everything – media attention, fan attraction, the number of the travelling supporters and a whole lot of other factors.
Highlanders lost their second match on the bounce when they fell 0-1 to Herentals at Barbourfields on Sunday to fall into eighth place.
Dynamos lost their SIXTH game of the 13 matches they have played so far when they collapsed in the final 10 minutes of the game to surrender a 1-0 lead and lose 1-2 to Ngezi Platinum Stars at Baobab.
The Glamour Boys are third-from-the-bottom of the table.
In sharp contrast, MWOS are leading the championship race with 27 points while Scottland are provisionally in third place with 23 points from their opening 13 games.
They have a game whose outcome will be decided in the boardroom after it was abandoned on Friday as Chicken Inn protested a last-minute penalty.
Precedents will tell you that the likely outcome from the boardroom will be Scottland getting three points and three goals.
But, even without taking that into consideration, MWOS and Scottland, with their current points tally, appear to be playing in a different league, especially when compared to Dynamos.
Such has been DeMbare’s shocking start to the season that the Glamour Boys, who have won just once, are on nine points from a possible 39.
Thirty points have been lost along the way already.
If we combine the DeMbare points tally and the Bosso points tally, the two giants will equal the same number of points which MWOS have (27) but they will still be in second place because of an inferior goal difference.
If we combine the points tally of MWOS and Scottland we get 50 points.
This is what excites fans and it’s an open secret that the arrival of MWOS and Scottland have revived interest in the domestic Premiership.
It’s also an open secret that since they left the ZIFA Northern Region Division One Soccer League, the country’s most competitive second-tier league has not generated the same interest it had last year.
Now, on Saturday, the two clubs – who appear to have been created to compete against each other for supremacy no matter which league they are playing in – woll clash at Ngoni.
There are some who are even saying that if this game was at Rufaro, had Scottland been the home, it would have been the first match to fill the old stadium to capacity since the Warriors edged Mali 2-1 in an AFCON qualifier on June 5, 2011.
More than 30,000 paid their way to watch that game and thousands were turned away.
I’m not so sure about the holding capacity of Ngoni but it’s very likely that it will have its biggest crowd this weekend.
