Zifa’s somersault that the Warriors will, after all, engage in a couple of friendly internationals next week has heightened both anticipation and crisis.
While this afterthought by the football mother body brings relief that our senior men’s national team will not be thrown at the deep end in November’s back-to-back African Cup of Nations qualifiers without minimum preparations, it also threatens to expose Zifa’s gross unpreparedness for the tough Algeria matches.
Currently, Zimbabwe trail the Desert Foxes by two points in their qualifying group after amassing four points from an away win over Zambia and a home draw with Botswana.
Algeria won both their qualifiers against the two sides.
Felton Kamambo, the Zifa president, revealed this week that coach Zdarko Logarusic’s boys are confirmed to clash against Malawi’s Flames on October 11 in Blantyre but might also see action four days earlier against Uganda in an unspecified Asian country.
Sounds pretty good so far were it not for the fact that his plans only reflect hope rather than certainty.
With barely a week before the envisaged friendlies take place, what is apparent is that Zimbabwe does not have a team to compete in either of those encounters, let alone in the crunch double-header against Algeria.
Firstly, the Croatian coach is still held up in his home country where he retreated at the height of the coronavirus outbreak in April.
When, and if, he arrives this week he will simply not have any time to put all his ducks in a row ahead of either the Asian or Malawian trip.
The team manager, who is normally responsible for carrying out the administrative duties that include calling players into camp, is not yet in place as Zifa are still to fill the post since giving Wellington Mpandare the boot at the end of last year.
There is not even a team to call to arms. Although Kamambo was characteristically at pains to explain how they will make use of both internally and externally-based players, his words were read by many to be mere bluster.
Kamambo expects local players who last did duty for the Warriors in November 2019 to be considered, which is a mockery as the same players have gone 12 months without kicking a ball due to the government lockdown measures that have seen sport put on hold for the whole year.
Such players obviously lack any modicum of fitness and will not be match-ready given just a day or two of practice.
Besides, Kamambo would not want to be held as someone who imposes players on the coach as Logarusic had already ruled out all dormant PSL players from the forthcoming ties.
Again, Zifa’s hope to entice foreign-based players who have returned to action on the European scene is also likely to hit a brickwall courtesy of the strict Covid-19 rules instituted by most European countries which make such players liable to 14-day quarantines on arrival back from an international journey, thereby inconveniencing their clubs.
The grim situation leaves only players plying their trade in South Africa and Tanzania, where league action has resumed, as the only ones available for the Malawi friendly, forgetting about the Uganda date which, to all intents and purposes, is just a populist dummy.
There indeed is a formidable array of players to pick from SA who may include new Orlando Pirates signing Terrence Dzukamanja, the resurgent Kaizer Chiefs star forward Khama Billiat and goalkeeper George Chigova who was recently snapped up by DStv Premier Soccer League mid-tablers Supersport United.
In fact, Zimbabwean players strutting their stuff down south are enough to constitute a full team and should not face difficulties making the journey across the Limpopo although Zifa’s master-stroke is to have all selected players travel directly to Blantyre.
The chief reason for that short-cut is the fact that Zimbabwe presently does not have a stadium to hold practice sessions, not to talk of staging a Fifa-sanctioned competitive match.
For flavour, the national team could book Malawi-bound flights for the Tanzania ensemble led by fiery striker Prince Dube, who is scoring for fun at Azam FC, and his evergreen teammate Never Tigere.
Another temptation is to recall the pair of Silas Songani and Last Jesi from their new Sudanese base, however, like most others, both Al-Hilal players are still action-rusty.
But there is no hiding the fact that whichever squad will be assembled can hardly equalize the quality that we have come to associate with the Warriors brand.
The conundrum is that no one is at 53 Livingstone Avenue to run the ruler on in-form and deserving players as the national team assistant coaches like Lloyd Chitembwe, Tonderai Ndiraya and Joey Antipas have since the lockdown started, been in the dark on what Zifa intend to do next.
Earlier, Zifa, despite being under pressure after their Afcon and World Cup opponents all secured preparatory dates, had been practical to forestall any friendly encounters before the qualifiers due to the forbidding circumstances involved.
Kamambo’s board appears to have only relented after a volley of public criticism but it was worth the while to do carry out thorough homework before making an about-turn which will, in all certainty, prove disastrous.
