Mangwiro confident of return leg victory

Grace Chingoma Harare Bureau
DESPITE conceding two away goals in the first leg of the Confederation Cup at Rufaro on Saturday, Harare City coach Taurai Mangwiro is confident that they are still on track to edge past AS Adema of Madagascar in a fortnight. Harare City were at home for the first leg at Rufaro on Saturday and although their 3-2 win handed them a narrow advantage, it is the Sunshine Boys’ defensive frailties which left some questions about whether the goals they they conceded may not haunt them in Madagascar.

The return match is on February 28 in a small town of Madagascar, 600km away from the capital city Antananarivo. AS Adema are based in the capital city, but their home ground is undergoing renovations and will have to fulfil the fixture “home away from home’’.

Mangwiro, had stressed on the significance of keeping a clean sheet at home before the game but said they are still in the driving seat following a first half strike by Ronald Chitiyo and a brace by Raphael Manuvire.

The Sunshine Boys could have come out with a comfortable win but they allowed the visitors to score two quick goals in the second period.

“Throughout the week I’ve been emphasising on the need to have a clean sheet, we let in two goals, obviously, as a coach I feel disappointed but at the same time scoring three, I don’t see how we will struggle to score in Madagascar .

“So I would want to take a lot of comfort from that and I believe with the 3-2 victory, which we have, we can go on and build on it,” said Mangwiro.

“I still fancy our chances, the kind of pressure that we were under in this game, they’ll also be under such kind of pressure and that we’re leading 3-2 it means they’re on the back foot and will play differently from what they were doing here and it would see us carve some openings and hopefully we will go to the next stage.

“We can go on to score even more. Of course I had said I wanted a clean sheet but it was lapses in defence. There was no marking on the first goal and then the second one just carelessness on the part of our defender and the referee gave it, on another day it could’ve been different. You give a team a lifeline and it can always be difficult,” he said.

Former Dynamos defender Blessing Moyo, already sitting on a yellow failed to deal with the second goal and the coach replaced him with Munya Diro in the 56th minute.

Mangwiro also suggested that his contingent of six players who were in Rwanda with the Warriors for the Chan tournament could still be struggling for confidence in much the same way as they did with the national team.

Although they may have found the target three times, the hosts’ attacking line of Francesco Zekumbawire, William Manondo, Chitiyo and Manuvire were guilty of missing a couple of chances.

“Sometimes it was awful finishing at times you would give credit to their goalkeeper, it’s things you know you need to continue working on hoping to come good one of these days. We had players that were part of the Chan tournament and these guys are under pressure. People feel they underperformed and didn’t do as they were expected and you’ll find that it kind of impacted negatively on a number of these guys.

“Francisco, having missed the first chance, he was never himself so a lot of these guys were under pressure. We had talked about it but I know there would be improvement come the return leg.

“I don’t know what we’re supposed to do. Let’s rally behind these players, let’s urge them on even in difficulties they need the support of the fans because it impacts negatively on us,” said Mangwiro.

“I foresee us improving with each outing. This game it was the real deal and we’ve identified where we fell short and let’s hope by the time we play the second leg we would’ve fine-tuned our shortcomings,” he said.

Mangwiro also believes that the first leg helped give him an insight to how AS Adema play.
“They’re very dangerous on the break, I must say, but very frail at the back, very jittery and if we get our act together I don’t see us failing to score.

“It was always going to be difficult going into this game where we had very little knowledge of our opponents. We’ve seen them play now we can plan going forward. I foresee a better performance in the second leg than what we did in this match.

“Overall, we’ve big decisions to make going forward, sometimes you look at a team you feel you’re almost there and then you play a game like this obviously you see a number of grey areas. I wouldn’t want to put the blame on any one of the departments and it’s important for us to go back and rectify the problems that we had but of course I did pick a number of grey areas,” said Mangwiro.

Mangwiro also spoke on the new player young Tanaka Ruzvidzo whom he introduced in the latter stages of the game and played as if he had Premiership experience.

The 19-year-old forward, who is also a former athletics sprinter at national level and completed high school last year, was very comfortable on the ball, as he made some good runs into the box.

“I thought he made a very good impression. It’s the same way through which we introduced Tino (Kadewere) and his future, I foresee him reaching greater heights and I’m happy with his contribution in the very few minutes he was on the field of play.
AS Adema coach Menakely Ruffin said he was happy with the result and is confident of turning the tables at home.

“We’re satisfied with the result because of the flight we had a day before the game, our players still managed to play well. We had some players who missed some goals but it was okay.

“We’re quite sure we’re going to win even in Madagascar because we want to do this for the people of Madagascar so we’re sure we’re going to go further in this tournament.

“We talked to our players to mark and to do everything that they can to win. And we actually boosted their morale because it was a game of morale.

“We were quite surprised by the team. They played well, they’ve very young players like our players and they were very impressive,” he said.

AS Adema skipper Tantely Antoine said they warmed up to the game after the breather.
“We were all nervous at the beginning but then we realised we could do it and it was a matter of just boosting our morale to encourage each other to fight to the end and get a good result.

“We’re just telling ourselves to work harder so that we go further in this tournament.
“They did well, it could’ve been better but at the same time coming from another team it’s very difficult to jell in early and that they managed to score on their debut it means going forward they’re bound to make a mark,’’ Antoine said.