The Zimbabwe Warriors went, played and were knocked out in the preliminary rounds of the CHAN tournament currently taking place in Sudan. It’s not the first time that the Warriors have crumbled on the grandest of them stages.
What really went wrong? A lot of soul searching was left to be done after the Warriors were booted out by South Africa’s developmental side. Starting from the preparations, all was not well with the Warriors staying in a lodge instead of a hotel. And as if that was not enough, the Warriors were coming from the feastive season and had to shed off the extra few kilos they had gained over the holidays.
The Warriors are in serious need of a playmaker of repute. During CHAN it was evident that the Warriors lacked vision and creativity that the likes of Ronald “Gidiza” Sibanda and Johannes “Tshisa” Ngodzo brought to the team a couple of years back. The current crop of midfielders does not live up to the expectations or standards that have been set by their predecessors.
They was not clean supply of balls to the strikers, as the stage proved to big for the likes of Joel Ngodzo and for the maturing Denver Mukamba who has a bright future ahead.. One wonders what the score line would have been had South Africa brought most of their Premiership players, the like of Teko Modise, Simphiwe Tshabalala and company, when we succumb to unknown players who ply their trade in the Mvela first division.
Is it that the South Africa league is now more competitive than the Zimbabwean league? It’s anyone’s guess. Our league has gone for sometime without sponsorship and we guess that has also affected the quality of players playing in our local league as all or most of the good players have been snapped up by the better paying South Africa league.
The other major thing that led to the Warriors downfall could have been technical or tactically awareness. The defence was shaky and seemed unsure of how to defend or they were not sure of their zonal areas. And they seemed vulnerable when under attack and the midfield kept losing the balls unnecessarily and the strike-force did not look sharp enough to lead us into the next round.
A lot of work has to be done for the Warriors to recover the lost ground that, that saw them tumbling in World ranking thanks to Asiagate. When Mali comes to town, the Warriors coach needs to have come up with a winning team, that will be brimming with confidence and supplying the likes of Knowledge Musona and Nyasha Mushekwi with clean balls and creating clear cut chances.
Failure to address the shortcomings witnessed at CHAN will lead to the Warriors missing out of AFCON 2012.
(By Bulawayo Vibes)
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