DYNAMOS skipper Frank Makarati has said that the players are ready to shed sweat and blood to fight for a ticket to the group stage of the Caf Confederation Cup when they clash with Botswana’s Orapa in the second leg of their final preliminary round tie.
DeMbare go into the contest carrying a 1-0 first leg advantage, but they are not going to get carried away.
Makarati said the players are fighting to qualify, to improve their own reputation, to please the fans and to put the country on the football map.
“This is a match we have to win at all cost. We are prepared to leave everything on the field,” he told NewsDay Weekender yesterday.
“A win will mean a lot for the team and our supporters. As players, we want to play for our careers because a win will improve our CVs.
“Qualifying to the group stages will also put the country back on the football map. So there is a lot at stake in this match.”
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The defender admitted that they face a tough contest against a good side, thus will have to approach it with the seriousness it deserves.
“Orapa are a good side, so we anticipate a tough encounter. We will have to concentrate for the whole 90 minutes because we know how dangerous they are. We won the first match, but there is still a lot of work to do. I have been telling the boys to guard against complacency,” Makarati said.
“We have to take full control of the match from the start. Trying to defend the goal we scored last week, would be suicidal. We can’t defend for the entire match, it’s almost impossible. We will have to try to take the game to them and look for a goal to kill them off. We have a game plan that the coaches are working with, and I’m sure if we execute it well, we will win.
“We were in the same situation against Zesco. We went there with a game plan which we executed well and walked away with a result that we wanted. It’s a different match altogether, but we are confident that we will sail through.”
Coach Lloyd Chigowe has got the full complement of his squad to choose from after Issa Sadiki and Sadney Urikhob, who missed last week’s match because of injuries, returned to training this week.
Orapa United assistant coach Gadimang Tiiso is also optimistic that his team can overturn the first leg deficit and go through to the group stages.
“We lost the match, but all is not lost,” he told the Botswana media.
“Some of my players are not used to matches of this magnitude. But I want to believe that we dominated the first leg, we just didn’t create many chances. The boys showed great amount of confidence.
“I treat the first leg as the first half. Going into the second leg, our aim is to build on the confidence that the boys showed. We lost by a slight mistake. Dynamos were also very compact and organised.”
Teams that go through to the group stages are guaranteed US$400 000, in addition to the US$50 000 they already got for participating in the preliminary rounds.