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Grace Chingoma Senior Sports Reporter
DYNAMOS expatriate coach Paulo Jorge Silva has finally secured his work permit and wants to boost his squad by adding two foreign strikers from either his homeland Portugal or Brazil.

Silva, who has been attending the club’s training sessions for the whole week while waiting for his papers, was granted his work permit on Friday night.

The Portuguese coach is set to collect his documents this morning and will immediately begin his official duties with the Harare giants this week.

Silva has already sampled the material at his disposal and left convinced that he needs more personnel upfront to boost their chances of reclaiming the league championship.

And with the calibre of the players he is looking for not readily available in the domestic Premiership, he has extended his search to the lower divisions of Europe and South America.

Last season, Roderick Mutuma, Takesure Chinyama, Richard Kawondera and Farai Mupasiri did duty in this department for the former champions and their shortcomings were visible that there is need for new blood to be infused into the DeMbare strike-force as the club failed to defend the league title which they had won for the last four years.

And the Portuguese is working on bringing in two players from the lower divisions of Portugal or Brazil presumably through his contacts there.

The club have already revealed that Nigerian legend Austin “Jay Jay” Okocha, who is now a player intermediary, has promised to provide them with some good talent from his stable.

Now their new Portuguese mentor is also confident that players from the football strongholds such as Brazil and plying their trade in the lower divisions there are talented enough to provide better competition to the Zimbabwean league.

He also seems to believe that they can be lured to Africa on a reasonable purse.

It appears the coach arrived at this decision after closely watching some video footage of Premiership matches involving Dynamos and other clubs and discovered that the dearth of lethal strikers is not only at DeMbare but all the league clubs in the domestic league.

A source close to the club said as the coach was watching the Warriors in action in Rwanda at the ongoing African Nations Championship, he discovered that the scarcity of good strikers is actually a national problem so it would not be easy to fish something for Dynamos this season from this dry pond hence the need to look outside our borders.

“(The local) players are not scoring goals, even the national team which is in Rwanda and is supposed to have the cream of the Premiership forwards, so the new coach saw that there are no exceptional strikers around and there is really need to look outside and bring players that will add value to the team.

“The club is already preparing to win the league this season so as the coaches assemble their squad they have to take into cognisance that they will build on these players next season when the team is competing in Africa and this is why the club is also considering players from Nigeria and Zambia and are really serious about bringing good talent aboard.

Dynamos will resume their training this morning after they last trained on Saturday. This week the new coach will be hoping to go full throttle without any fear now that he has secured his work permit.

Silva, who got his work permit rather early after his papers were submitted last week, will now get into serious pre-season mode and no longer worry about leaving the country while his papers are being processed.

After assessing the bulk of the players that are registered with the club, except for four players that are with the national team in Rwanda, the Portuguese coach has identified the players he wants to work with this season.

Players deemed excess are likely to be released or loaned out to other clubs.

Goalkeeper Tatenda Mukuruva, Mutuma, Elisha Muroiwa and Ocean Mushure are in Rwanda with the national team and will only start working with Portuguese coach next week, as the Warriors are set to return home by this coming weekend. Some of the big names trying their luck at Dynamos are Nathan Ziwini, Liberty Chakoroma, Archieford Gutu and Jimmy Dzingai.

The Glamour Boys have added three players to their family — Valentine Ndaba, Dominic Mukandi and Tichaona Chipunza — and more players are likely to be signed in the coming weeks.

This development is likely to leave some of the players who still have running contracts with the stark reality of being loaned to other clubs or being released.