Nyasa Big Bullets have officially started preparing for the 2020/21 soccer season, which is set to kick off in November.
After nearly seven months of no football activity in the country following its suspension due to Covid-19 pandemic, The People’s Team arrived in the lakeshore district of Mangochi on Monday as part of the pre-season training.
On Tuesday, the first day of training, Kalisto Pasuwa’s squad had a busy schedule from as early as 5:30am, doing gym sessions and later beach sessions on the scorching beach in the afternoon.
Speaking to Bullets media after Tuesday’s sessions, the Zimbabwean mentor explained the choice of location for Bullets’ first part of the pre-season preparations.
Pasuwa revealed the coaching panel settled for Mangochi, about 200 kilometers away from the TNM Super League defending champions’ base, Blantyre, because it fits well with the pre-season programme.
“Mangochi favours our training program because of its proximity to the lake. We also wanted a place where players would be together for team bonding and team spirits aspects,” disclosed Pasuwa.
Bullets will train for about a month before their involvement in the Ecobank Charity Shield slated for 21 and 22 November and then the TNM Super League titled defence scheduled to kick-off a week later.
On whether a four-week preparation period will be enough for his Bullets to get ready before kicking off the new season, Pasuwa said:
“We have four weeks away before the Charity Shield, which is very minimal in relation with the time that we needed. We should have been given six weeks or more for the players to be ready after such a lengthy period without playing football.
“But that’s the reason why we came up with the intensive programme to overload the players, while also trying to manage their recovery and diets aspects of it,” said the former Zimbabwe national team coach, who clocked two years on Monday since he joined The People’s Team.
Bullets will be looking forward to defend both the Charity Shield and the TNM Super League championship, which they won for two consecutive years now under Pasuwa.
