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Ellina Mhlanga Sports Reporter
LAST year’s ZIFA Northern Region Division One soccer league runners-up, Gunners, will this year focus more on young players when they begin their pre-season preparations next week.

The former Premiership champions are expecting to begin their preparations early next week as they join clubs such as Mushowani and Ngezi Platinum that have already begun preparing for the upcoming season.

Speaking to The Herald yesterday, Gunners president Cuthbert Chitima said they were meeting tomorrow to map the way forward and plan the club’s preparations to take-off next week.

The Gunners president said they were hoping to engage more young players in their team this year with their target age-group being the Under-20s.

Chitima, who runs two academies in Mabvuku and Chitungwiza, said they will be considering players not only from their academies but anyone who meets the criteria.

“I know we are having a meeting on Friday to map the way forward and plan to have our pre-season preparations start. Our target is to win the league, that I won’t lie.

“We want to start our pre-season next week. Additionals obvious are there but we would want to look for Under-20 players, we want to deal with juniors from now on.

“We will take them from the academy or somewhere else, we don’t mind as long as they meet the criteria. We have an academy already, we have two, one based in Mabvuku with all the age-groups from Under-12, Under-14, Under-16, Under-18 and Under-20, and another one in Chitungwiza and they both play in the junior league,” said Chitima.

The former Premiership champions last year indicated that they were building a team to challenge for the championship this year and hopes will be high when the season starts for the club to earn promotion into the top-flight league. Last year they just missed on the league title after they lost their way in the last matches of the season having led the race for some time.