One would assume that perhaps Dynamos were struggling because they were using a kit which marks their 60th year of existence, yet they are now in their 61st year of existence.

The Glamour Boys however looked different in the first half against Simba Bhora at a packed Wadzanai Stadium yesterday.

They looked different in the sense that they were donning their new adidas kit, and also played attractive football, unlike in the previous game against Bulawayo Chiefs.

Roving right-back Emmanuel Jalai and midfielder Frederick Ansa-Botchway in particular, rarely put a foot wrong in a dominant first half for Genesis Mangombe’s charges.

But against the run of play, seconds before referee Brighton Chimene blew his whistle for half time, Tichaona Chipunza showed great vision to release Walter Musona, who displayed remarkable composure from a tight angle, to thrust Simba ahead and Wadzanai erupted with green and yellow delight.

Considering how dominant DeMbare were in the first half, one would assume they wouldn’t struggle to restore parity in the after the restart, or possibly try to win the game, but they somehow fizzled out in the second stanza, to the dismay of their travelling supporters.

They were unrecognizable in the second half and never looked like a side capable of coming back into the game.

Despite congesting the midfield, where Ansa Botchway, Tanaka Shandirwa, Donald Mudai and Temptation Chiwunga operated, DeMbare showed very little, in fact, no creativity at all for a side chasing the game.

Mudadi, arguably the most creative of the midfield quartet, was not even the furthest forward, a weird decision on the part of Mangombe.

The youthful coach’s lack of inovation was there for all to see when he replaced Shandirwa with Nomore Chinyerere —a defender, in 69th minute with DeMbare desperate for an equaliser and that substitution summed up DeMbare’s problems.

Mangombe, whose future is now shrouded uncertainity after just one victory in seven matches in all competitions in 2024, blamed the defeat on his strikers’ “lack of clinicalness”, as if any clear cut goalscoring opportunities were created.

“We lost the game but as you could see, we tried by all means to dominate the first half and we tried to create a lot of chances but at the end of the day, if there is no one who is clinical, then you can play the whole 90 minutes without scoring,” Mangombe told journalists after the game.

Probably unaware that goal celebrations are the only thing rehersed in football, Mangombe insisted that his side’s final third needs to be “rehersed a lot of times.”

“We need to improve on our scoring, we need to improve on our conversion rate. I think our final third needs to be rehersed a lot of times,” he said.

“We need to make sure we create more chances, maybe we can get one. We dominated in the first half and if we were lucky, we could have buried one chance but it’s a game of football, we made one mistake and we were punished,” added Mangombe.

The under-fire coach blamed his side’s failure to replicate the perfomance they produced in the first half, to some of the players’ “lack of mental strength.”

“Of course, we didn’t have much control of the game in the second half but it’s always difficult when you are chasing the game and some of these players, they still want to grow mentally so we need to psych them up,” said Mangombe.

Dynamos face TelOne at Rufaro Stadium in their next fixture.