Warriors blame rust
WARRIORS and Manica Diamonds utility player, Talent Chamboko, believes the inactivity spanning more than a year owing to the Covid-19 lockdown restrictions was their biggest nemesis in the 2020 CHAN tournament in Cameroon.
The senior national team was bundled out of the CHAN tournament after a humiliating 1-3 defeat at the hands of Burkina Faso on Wednesday night.
Wednesday’s defeat came hard on the heels of another loss to hosts Cameroon by a solitary goal in the tournament’s opening encounter last Saturday.
Zimbabwe players last tasted competitive football action when the country’s Premier Soccer League season ended on November 30, 2019 and players who are representing the country in this year’s CHAN tournament in Cameroon are convinced that lack of competitive game time exposed them badly.
“We gave it our best. We really tried hard on the field of play, but somehow we failed to achieve what we all wanted. I think it is clear that the fact that we have not been playing competitive football for a long time affected us negatively,” said Chamboko in an interview from Cameroon soon after Wednesday night’s encounter.
Chamboko played in all the two matches Zimbabwe has played so far in the tournament.
Indeed, Zimbabwe has not been active and there was one only match, a Champion of Champions clash between league champions, FC Platinum and Chibuku Cup winners, Highlanders last year in March before all football activities were halted at the end of the same month due to the national lockdown which began on March 31, 2020.
Since then, Zimbabwe’s home grown players have not seen any competitive action as the country registered a whole year without any league match being played across all divisions.
As if that enough, new Warriors’ coach, Zdravko Logarusic, himself appointed in February 2020, a month before Covid-19 struck, never had ample time to watch his players in action for him to make informed decisions in player selection.
The 54-year-old Croat who has previously guided Sudan in a CHAN tournament had to create a bio-bubble league of his own ahead of the CHAN tournament when his makeshift squad played against several Premiership clubs in a last ditch attempt to select players.
Zimbabwe have traditionally done well to qualify regularly for the CHAN tournament since the inaugural competition in Cote d’Ivoire in 2009 which was by invitation.
The Warriors also made it to the 2011 competition in Sudan where they, however, failed to make it beyond the group stage.
CAF then realigned the CHAN years to 2014, with the third edition being staged in Cape Town, South Africa and it was at that tournament that the Warriors under the guidance of their former national team striker, Ian ‘Dibango’ Gorowa reached their finest hour, finishing fourth in the competition.
Two years later at the 2016 edition in Rwanda, the Warriors were also among the 16 sides, but they could not progress in a group that also included Zambia and Uganda.
Now on their return to this competition reserved strictly for players playing in the domestic leagues of their countries, Zimbabwe could not shake off the rust that came with more than a year of inactivity.