Blantyre Derby pre-match presser: Every word from Peter Mponda

FCB Nyasa Big Bullets will be looking to bounce back from their recent humiliation in the Blantyre Derby as they face Mighty Wanderers again in the semifinal of the FDH Bank Cup at Kamuzu Stadium on Sunday afternoon.

Bullets are heading into the weekend’s assignment after losing 3-0 to the same opponent in a league game last Sunday.

Head Coach Peter Mponda faced the press to unpack the preparations for the game and here is every word by the Coach;

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How the team is preparing for the game

“My responsibility as a coach is to lift the spirits of the players. Losing 3-0 to Mighty Wanderers was very bad, very bad performance, very discouraging to the players looking at the hard work that they always put at training. Their performance on the day was flat, they were failing to do anything. My only job is to encourage them, instill belief in them that we should go ahead and try to get ourselves into the finals.

“As a coach, I look at my players, the way they played that game, the way we were training during the week prior to that game, it was totally different from the way we played that 90 minutes.

“Before that game, I gave one interview which I talked about the state of the team, I said we were ready for the game. I had that feeling that the way we were training, we were looking good, the team was improving, on the day, it was totally different but we have talked, we have analysed, we have seen where we went short, this time around we need to make our supporters happy.

From your experience, as a player, captain, what does it really take for you to recover from such setback?

“There is nothing that we need to do and talk to the players, it’s just the game itself, is a semifinal and chance to get into the finals, if we win that game, our supporters will start believing in us again. They will forget that humiliation we suffered seven days ago. And today, I strongly believe that the way they have training thus far, we are going to get it right this time around.

“The motivation is that we already have one trophy in our bag. We know that we have a cup in our cabinet and we have got a chance to get into the finals where we are going to compete again for another cup, that’s a big motivation. That’s also what is making the players waking up and come for training, and get our chance to play the finals.

“From what I’m seeing in training, I’m very happy with their response. Maybe, the only thing which it’s making me to be sorry is the way how some of our supporters behaved. I don’t think that it’s proper to be insulting the players because it’s me who select players, if there is anything, I think they should come to me rather than talking to the players because we will still need the players the following derby, like in this incident, we lost last week, we will need same players to come and perform for us this week.

What kind of response are you expecting from the players

Like I said, we lost to Wanderers not because of tactics, we lost because our friends were working harder than us. So, I don’t think that we need to adjust anything, we don’t need to change anything, we just need to there and play our normal football again like the way we have been playing throughout the season.

Update on Yankho Singini

He is looking good in training, yes, we know that he is coming from an injury but the way he is training, he is in contention [for the game] but still, we haven’t yet decided whether to start or not but he is looking good the way he is training.

Not happy with the way how fans behaved, who argued that your fielding was not good, how can you defend the line up

I don’t have to defend anything, I’m the one who spend time with the players, we spend maybe four hours or five hours to train them, we know who is performing and who is not performing. So, in terms of selection, it all relies on me, like I said, I take the responsibility because I’m the one who fielded the players.”