Warriors’ date with destiny

ONCE again, our senior national soccer team — the Warriors — are on another voyage in the jungles of international football in the latest search for continental greatness and pride of the world’s most beautiful game when they face Liberia away in Monrovia, on Sunday.

Zimbabwe goes into Sunday’s match perched at the pinnacle of Group G on eight points.

They have played four rounds of matches. Highly fancied Democratic Republic of Congo are second, with five points.

With the group winner and runners-up guaranteed a place at the continental football show-piece set for Cameroon next June, it is the Warriors who have what looks like an easy task to book the ticket to Yaoundé.

While the other teams will need outright victories, Sunday Chidzambwa’s men just need a point from their two remaining matches to secure one of the two qualifying tickets.

But, getting a point away in Liberia is not a given, and Chidzambwa and his men have to be aware of this. The same can even be said of the final group match against Congo-Brazzaville, in Harare.

It is for these well grounded reasons that we hasten to remind both the coaches and players to resist the temptation of sitting on their laurels and avoid the last hurdle jinx that has always dogged our Afcon qualifying campaigns in the past.

History is awash with examples where the national team faltered at the dying stages on the campaign after a promising start.

It is also imperative that the team readies itself for tough and sometimes unfriendly reception by their hosts, a syndrome that is synonymous with African football.

Given the experience that abounds in the current Warriors technical set up, such shenanigans should not be a challenge at all.

The return of our talismanic captain Knowledge Musona and other key players who missed the back-to-back clashes with DRC due to injuries, especially defender Costa Nhamoinesu and striker Tino Kadewere, should give the nation some hope that our flagship football brand will prevail.

Even though Musona is currently not having enough game time at Anderlecht where he has been reduced to some cameo roles, we all know what he has done and is capable of doing.

The Smiling Assassin, as he has been nicknamed, played a pivotal role in the successful campaign for the previous finals in Gabon, and is again the leading light in the current qualifiers, where Zimbabwe are on the brink of sealing a place for the 2019 finals in Cameroon.

Kaiser Chief hardman Willard Katsande, who makes a sensational return to the national team after a sabbatical, is also widely expected to add depth and steel in the midfield.

One thing for sure is that we will sing, dance, hug, ululate and whistle each time the Warriors find the net.

We need to win, yes, but a draw is enough. So we reunite and reorganise ourselves once again as the boys plunge into their latest bid to claim continental supremacy by qualifying for the Africa Cup of Nations tournament.

Naturally, we are also bound to curse the gods, frown in dejection and utter melancholy if the boys succumb or fail to finish off the good work they started with impressive results.

All that matters to us, at least on Sunday afternoon, is the success of this band of players who will compete at the Samuel Kanyon Doe Sports Complex in Monrovia for the cause of their motherland.

All that matters to us now, at least on Sunday, is the national pride at stake knowing fully well that there is more to what unites than divide us as Zimbabweans.

That is why we will all ululate each time the man who will keep goals for us makes a spectacular save and all the domestic club differences will be set aside for the cause of the nation.

Indeed, that is why we will all find the excitement irresistible if the team wins the match including those who might have had different opinions on which player should have made it in the team.

Go Warriors Go!