BY TAWANDA TAFIRENYIKA DYNAMOS’s roving right-back Emmanuel Jalai is set to break into the South African topflight league amid reports that he is scheduled to undergo trials with an unnamed club in the coming three weeks.
The defender is on loan from Aces Youth Academy and it is understood a club in South Africa has been following his progress for quite some time and wants to have a closer assessment of him with a view to signing him ahead of the 2022-23 season.
The player’s handler George Deda yesterday told NewsDay Sport that the player was set for trials in South Africa, but declined to disclose the exact destination.
“He (Jalai) is scheduled to attend trials in South Africa during the pre-season period. I have spoken to his club (Aces Youth Academy) and Dynamos. He should be leaving within the next three weeks,” he said without elaborating.
This comes as Dynamos also released two players — Emmanuel Paga and Shadreck Nyahwa — for trials in Tanzania.
The pair travelled to Dar-es Salam last week at the invitation of that country’s topflight league side Azam FC, for a two-week assessment which commenced last Friday.
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The players took advantage of the two-week break in the domestic league to travel to Tanzania for the assessments.
The two will also travel to Egypt for trials at topflight league side Pyramids.
Should the trio be successful, it could send Dynamos coach Tonderai Ndiraya back into the transfer market to search for replacements.
Jalai joined Dynamos in 2019 and although he failed to make it on the 2019 Soccer Stars of the Year calender, he was one of the top performers in a season Dynamos performed below expectations — finishing a distant ninth on the final table. He has continued to be a key member of Ndiraya’s title-chasing squad this term.
Nyahwa joined the Glamour Boys as a free agent last year from Bulawayo Chiefs and has been one of the team’s unsung heroes while Paga , who was signed at the start of the year from Ghana, has been outstanding, scoring five goals to top the club’s goalscorers’ list.
Ndiraya fears the stars’ departure could severely dent their chances of winning the premier league title this year.
“It will be a big blow if they leave because we want to have all our best players when we get into the final phase of this marathon,” he told NewsDay Sport on Thursday.
“They are key squad members and we would have wanted to keep the team intact for the whole season, but all the same we wish them well and we hope they can make it. It is a lifetime and life-changing opportunity for them and when such opportunities come, you don’t want to deny your players that chance. If they don’t make it, we will receive them back with open arms. They are our players, so we would want them to come back and finish this thing that we started together.”
DeMbare currently sit third on the log table with the same number of points as second-placed FC Platinum and one behind leaders Chicken Inn.
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