Africa-Press – Zimbabwe. A Zimbabwe Football Association (ZIFA) board member has promised an inquest into the national team’s pathetic display at the COSAFA Cup tournament where the Warriors returned home from South Africa without a single win in the four matches they played, including losing to a third-string Senegal side.
Bryton Malandule, who also chairs the ZIFA’s technical and development committee, said they will scrutinise the Warriors’ technical team’s report and decide on the way forward.
In trying to justify the insipid display, Warriors coach Zdravko Logarusic claimed that COSAFA was just an experimental tournament to access players in preparation for CHAN and the upcoming World Cup qualifiers.
But Malandule is adamant that was not the case. He told The Sunday News that ZIFA expected the Warriors to win the COSAFA Cup. Said Malandule:
From a board point of view, we expected these guys to go and win the tournament, that was the mandate.
That is why we sacrificed our little resources, we cannot send people, when we don’t have money to on holiday, to go and make experiments.
We sent them to go and win. Someone came all way from the USA, we had Mapisa (Mapisa) from Spain, those are serious players so we expected better performances, so let’s wait and see the explanation from the coach as to why did perform dismally like this.
ZIFA is expected to review the team’s performance based on the technical team’s report and a decision will be made thereafter.
Zimbabwe start their 2022 FIFA World Cup qualifiers in September. The Warriors are in group g together with Ethiopia, Ghana and South Africa.
