Nyasa Big Bullets coach Kalisto Pasuwa faced the media on Thursday for the first pre-match press conference ahead of The People’s Team’s 2020-21 TNM Super League opening match against Blue Eagles at Kamuzu Stadium on Saturday.
Pasuwa discussed his squad, injuries, the just closed transfer window and the expectations ahead of the new season as Bullets plan to defend the title.
Catch up on everything that the Bullets head coach said in his press conference at the Club House in Blantyre.
On the team’s pre-season preparations:
“As Nyasa Big Bullets, we have been doing our pre-season just like any team. We were in Mangochi preparing the players for the 2020/21 season. It went on very well and even on the physical part of it, as you know we were not training for more than seven months and the fitness level was down, so we wanted to bring it back. Bringing back fitness the way it was is a long process. We had one month of our pre-season where we worked with the boys and I think they are now ready to go, but as we move, we have also some injuries we incurred when we were training and we also have some players who were not part of us when we were starting our preparations, but I am very confident that on Saturday, they will do good for us.
On playing the first game against Blue Eagles:
“We are hoping for a very entertaining game. Blue Eagles is a team we cannot underrate. It’s a physical team which is very quick on the ball. I think we have done our homework well because last time we lost to them when we were playing away from home, despite being on top of them in everything but we conceded in the second half. We have been working on areas that we think we went wrong in that defeat and we hope this time around it will come good on our side.
On the fans expecting more from his team:
Every new season brings new expectations and I think the way we performed last season, obviously people want to see more and more.
On his approach to the start of the season:
If you can remember, [last season] I talked of preparing everybody to say there is no one who can be guaranteed a start in the first eleven, we were thinking far and it came good when we were rotating those players towards the end of the season. If we register 30 players, we need everyone to be ready to play, hence the reason we registered them. So again, we did the same thing this time, where everybody should be prepared to play so that there shouldn’t be a gap. It’s a challenge to the players to prove me right whenever given a chance to play and this is the motto we are having as Bullets.
On having a quite transfer window:
Remember, last season we promoted a lot of youngsters from our Reserve team. It’s not a case of saying today we are removing six then tomorrow we are bringing in nine. We need those youngsters to grow before we can go for new players. We can’t change the whole team. It’s a process for us to have a team and win games.
His take on the players he has:
The squad is so far so good. I am very happy and that’s why we registered those 30 players.
On bringing in a centre-back as replacement for Charles Petro, who is now playing in Moldova:
We wanted to bring a new center-back to replace Charles Petro. As you know, he was one of the best players in Malawi [last season] and you cannot just wake up and say you have got a replacement. You need to look around in order to get a player who is better off or same type of a player like Charles, so we are still looking around for someone who can fill his gap.
Bullets’ encounter against Blue Eagles at Kamuzu Stadium on Saturday will kick-off at 14:30 and will be live on Mibawa TV.
