SENIOR national women football team Rosemary Mugadza said her team will go out for an outright win when they take on their Uruguayan counterparts in an international friendly match at the Burgueno Stadium here in Maldonado on Tuesday evening.
Henry Mhara in Maldonado, Uruguay
Kick-off time is 1800hrs local time (2200hrs Zimbabwe time). Mugadza yesterday announced her strongest possible squad for the match, the first of the three international matches lined up here.
“There is nothing much I know about the Uruguay team except for the little information I got on the internet. They have played in all the qualifiers for international and major competition except for 2010 although they have not managed to qualify.
But that on its own shows how serious they are about women football. They will try to impress against us and I think they will give us the challenge we want. We are prepared for the match and I have told my girls to go out there for a win,” said Mugadza.
Uruguay coach Jorge Burgell said women football is still in its development stage. He said they do not get the same recognition that their male counterparts enjoy.
“For Uruguayans soccer is masculine, and there is nothing further from the truth,” he said. “We are trying to use every opportunity to develop our game. This is an international game and we hope to gain a lot of things from the Zimbabwe team,” Burgell added.
The Mighty Warriors will play their second match of the tour here against Uruguay Under 20 on Thursday before facing Burgell’s team again on Saturday.
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Initially, this was supposed to be a five nations team tournament but Paraguay, Chile and Brazil pulled out.
Nair Ackermann, the president of Women’s soccer council of the Uruguayan Soccer Association explained.
“We had Chile and Paraguay here last year and we had hoped to expand the tournament by including more teams but unfortunately the other teams did not heed our calls. And here we are with Uruguay and Zimbabwe only so we have tried to make the best out of the situation by including our Under 20 team. We are hoping it will be a good tournament.”
Ackermann said her association will reciprocate Zimbabwe’s gesture by touring Harare soon.
“It could be June or July. We will really need to consider it. We need to respect this relationship with Zimbabwe,” said Ackermann. Unlike their senior team, the Uruguay junior side have played in the World Cup, with their recent participation coming last September in Azerbaijan.
The Mighty Warriors left Harare on Saturday and arrived in Uruguay capital Montevideo on Sunday night before taking a 120 kilometres road trip to the hosting city.
Mighty Warriors first IX to face Uruguay today: O Chingawo, E Chibanda, R Mutyavaviri, D Bhobho, M Musasa, T Mandaza, M Nyaumwe, N Ndlovu, F Muzongondi, R Makore, E Jeke.
