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Tadious Manyepo Sports Reporter
FC PLATINUM coach Hendrikus Pieter De Jongh says the majority of his players are in a good physical shape.

But his main concern is their mentality.

The local Premiership football champions started training as a group on Saturday.

That followed a special Government waiver they received last week to start preparing as a team for the CAF Champions League. The continental club competition commences next month.

The Zvishavane club, just like all other teams in all divisions in the country, had not trained as a group since March when football activities were suspended due to Covid-19.

But the three-time Premiership champions were forced to write a special application to get a waiver after CAF last month announced the premier continental club competition would start this November.

And the team congregated at their Mandava base after getting the special permission last week coupled with strict Covid-19 regulations to start group sessions.

While their Dutch mentor is pleased with the physical shape of most of his troops, he has expressed concern on the state of their mentality.

“The team started training on Saturday and we will be conducting a single session per day in the first seven days,” said De Jongh.

“I am impressed by the players’ mood and attitude towards the game.

“I am also happy with their physical shape. The majority of the squad is in the right physical posture with only a fraction of them in need of special attention.

“But no doubt each and every one of them need serious mental attention.

“It has been seven months of nothing and it is the first time they have been through this hell since they started playing football.

“So while we need to condition them in terms of physicality and technical needs, there is obviously every need for us to fix significant attention on their mentality.

“When players take such a long period without engaging in competitive football, there are chances they will be prone to lose concentration and make errors.

“They won’t be confident on the ball and there will be all sorts of problems. The players are visibly traumatised. This pandemic has affected them, one way or the other and we need to take more time working on the players’ mentality.”

De Jongh said he will pull all the stops to make sure the team is ready for the continental adventure.

“It’s very difficult as it stands. I have been working with the players remotely for the past seven months.

“Other clubs who we will be playing in the CAF Champions League resumed action way before us and some are already playing competitive football while we only train on our own.

“Ideally, you need to be playing competitions so that you pick flaws which need to be addressed.

“But, well, that’s how it is. We will have to do our best under the circumstances and make sure the team is well prepared for the continental adventure.”

De Jongh was yesterday expecting to welcome striker Stanley Ngala who was dropped from the Warriors squad which played Malawi in Blantyre yesterday.

Ngala, along with Silas Songani, have been the only two missing members from the squad that assembled in the mining town on Friday.

Songani is still in Sudan where he is training with giants Al Hilal on trial but the former Harare City man is also expected back home soon.

He is reported to have impressed the Al Hilal hierarchy who have expressed interest in signing him but only after the current Sudanese season.

And FC Platinum are pressing to have him back rather than having the player wait to sign after the end of the term.

De Jongh, who is currently working with Patrick Mandizha as his only assistant following the departure of Lizwe Sweswe last week, said the club will be announcing the full members of the technical team this week. He, however, refuted that the assistants will come from Highlanders.

De Jongh joined the miners from Bosso early this year with a mandate to better the team’s CAF Champions League showing.

FC Platinum have reached the group stages in the past two campaigns and De Jongh is widely believed to be earmarking some of his former assistants at the Bulawayo giants to replace Sweswe.