The Sunday News
Mehluli Sibanda, Senior Sports Reporter
FC Platinum are heading to Bulawayo today (Thursday) where they will hold two training sessions at Barbourfields Stadium, the venue of their must win Caf Champions League group stage clash against Horoya of Guinea on Saturday.
The Zimbabwean champions initially wanted to come to Bulawayo on Tuesday with the aim to have to have four training sessions at Barbourfields but were forced to change their plans. Norman Mapeza, the FC Platinum coach said they were told by the City of Bulawayo that they can only have two training sessions at Barbourfields.
According to Mapeza, they were offered Luveve Stadium, something they were not comfortable with since they wanted to fine tune at Emagumeni They will now train at Barbourfields on Thursday and Friday before they play Horoya on Saturday.
“We are coming to Bulawayo on Thursday, BCC only gave us two days to train at BF. They wanted us to train at Luveve which doesn’t make sense to us since we are playing at BF,’’ Mapeza said.
FC Platinum have been training at their home ground in Zvishavane, Mandava Stadium whose turf Mapeza feels is almost similar to that of Barbourfields with the difference being that Emagumeni has a superior length, hence they needed more time to train in Bulawayo.
“Our preparations for the match against Horoya have gone really well, the turf at Mandava is more like BF, but the length at BF is much bigger that is why we wanted to have more days of training there,. We are ready to face Horoya though there is some few days to go,’’ Mapeza said.
Both teams are yet to win so far having played two matches each and occupy the bottom the bottom spots in the group that is headed by Orlando Pirates who are followed by defending champions Espérance.
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