The Sunday News
Ngqwele Dube, Sports Correspondent
AMBITIOUS Castle Lager Premier Soccer League side, Ngezi Platinum Stars, is set for a three-week training camp in South Africa as they prepare to challenge for the title this coming season.
The Mhondoro-based club who have not hidden their championship ambitions is scheduled to play Absa Premiership side, Bidvest Wits, Black Leopards and Polokwane City during their three week stint in the neighbouring country.
Head coach, Erol Akbay said they are fine tuning arrangements of the trip and they might engage more teams if their schedule permits.
The Dutch mentor arrived in the country a fortnight ago and got down to business as he seeks to bring the title to Mhondoro.
“Our preseason preps are going on well we will be heading to South Africa this month where we hope to fine tune our preps and we are going to play several teams there.
“We are going to know the full details of the trip next week as we have not finalised our itinerary but we are going down south,” he said.
Akbay said they are optimistic of replacing players that exited the club at the beginning of the year and they are already looking at several players that are training with them.
He, however, declined to identify the players saying it would be premature as they are yet to make any concrete signings.
The former Highlanders gaffer declared his intent to lift the title with Ngezi this year adding he is ready to meet the targets set for him by the executive.
Sources revealed the team has promoted several players from their development side and also roped in two players from Talen Vision including Nigerian forward, Osie Minuru and Tawanda Muchaya, who had a stint in Slovakia in 2017 before making a return to the Southern Region Division One side.
Ngezi finished second behind champions FC Platinum but management was not happy with the result and gave then head coach Tonderai Ndiraya the boot replacing him with the former Highlanders coach.
Ngezi lost a number of players following the departure of Ndiraya and they include Clive Augusto who landed at Chicken Inn, Godknows Murwira who is now with FC Platinum and Walter Mukanga who was snapped up by Harare City among others.
