FCB Nyasa Big Bullets head coach Kalisto Pasuwa faced the media ahead of our TotalEnergies CAF Champions League first preliminary round first leg match against Zambia’s Red Arrows at Bingu National Stadium on Sunday afternoon.
Among other issues, the Zimbabwean spoke about his team’s preparedness, the opposition, injuries, and the importance of getting a positive result in the first match at home.
Read on to find out what Pasuwa discussed in the buildup to our African football challenge.
On the team’s preparations and how the players are looking
Once again, we are back in the Champions League. Yes, we have been having problems with injuries but again, there are players whom we have been training, as you know we registered more than 25 players and from those registered players, last week, we played a league match and we lost Chrispin Mapemba, while Chikumbutso Salima is doubtful as doctors are saying he is not yet okay. Besides that, some of the fully fit players will be part of us when we meet Red Arrows.
On motivation for the players to do better following struggles in the league
Yes, we say that we started slowly and like I said, if you start maybe with the season that we had [in 2023], we had so many injuries because of frequent travelling, so many games in hand and we were travelling with most of the guys in the bus. We lost a lot of players who ended up going to Zimbabwe for operations and when they came in, I think we only welcomed back Frank Willard who is now playing but some of the players are not yet back.
The unfortunate part of it again was when we started off the season, we had 17 players who had flu and they were not part of us and we added the numbers on two to three games that followed, were not part of us and if you could see now, it was a matter of combinations now especially some of these new players who just joined us, hence we started very slowly and as we were proceeding, we were losing players again and until now, we are still losing them, but we can’t run away from playing. We registered ourselves in the Champions League and everyone knows about it. Everyone in the house is talking about it and mentally we are ready for it.
On the importance of winning the home match
It is very crucial to play at home. We need to be very offensive, but again, these are patient games where the moment you open up, you can be attacked on counter-attacks. You also need to be very careful and like what I have been preaching, to say [during] these international matches, a slight mistake you make gets you punished. A good example is our game against TP Mazembe in DRC where we lost the game in 20 minutes. So, it’s a game where one can play for ten minutes then they manage the game, so we need to be very careful with the way we want to attack, but we also need to see that we don’t concede.
On what he knows about the opposition
We have been reading about them, we have been seeing them on social media and it’s a good team, good in possession on the ball, a very experienced side but again football being football, we need to meet them.
On how Bullets have been preparing
The players are ready and we have been talking, telling them that this is their chance to be seen, to make themselves go to another level. Yes, it might look that every time we are going out of the first round but if you can look at the moment when we play the Champions League, when we come in the second round, the way we perform when the boys are playing local games, there is a change in whatever we are doing in approach because they experienced another football in another country.
On learning from previous Champions League campaigns
Yes, we have been talking about it. You see the problem is complacency when they are playing at home. The moment you do that, you can end up conceding and when you look at the goals that we concede when we are playing at home, these are avoidable goals. So, we need to take all games we are playing home or away seriously in whatever we do.
On Precious Sambani’s return
Besides fitness, he is one of the senior players in the team. We have been working on his mentality. I think he is good to go from what I have seen in him.
On the spine of the team following the arrival of two Zimbabwean players
We signed two international players but the unfortunate part of it, these players got injuries. If you look at Collin Mujuru, he played the first games, the Charity Shield and a few other games and from there, he got injured. Then again, we had Ronald Chitiyo who got injured and he only came back now where he is now playing games, so it’s the combination that we are crying for to say every time if we say we have a spine and this spine is the one that is being taken away as we always start again.
On players’ mentality ahead of the game
I have been with most of these players. It’s only maybe a problem to some of the players who are coming in, as they are slowly catching up. But one thing again, in Bullets, if you saw last time, I have been teaching these boys three things at the same time to say we need to play Champions League, we need to play Super League, we need to play cup games locally. So, in all these games that we play, mostly, we have different approaches and how you take them on. To some of the players, they are slowly catching up. Another disadvantage we have as Bullets is that Senaji is the team’s Vice Captain and if a team is interested in his services, we let him go. Where is he going? He is going to a team that we are meeting next week, which is a disadvantage we are having at the end of the day. But again, we are looking at the money and we also look at the future of the player, then also we see ourselves to have better results.
