WARRIORS’ Morocco 2015 Africa Cup of Nations (Afcon) football qualifying campaign has been wrecked before it has even commenced with news that the team’s talisman Knowledge Musona will be out for six weeks with an ankle injury, effectively ruling him out of the qualifiers which begin early next month.
HENRY MHARA SPORTS REPORTER Zimbabwe, who received a bye in the Afcon preliminary qualifying round that concluded last weekend, will only know of their second round opponents when the draw is conducted in Cairo, Egypt, on Sunday.
Musona’s club Kaizer Chiefs yesterday revealed that the striker would be out for up to six weeks, making him unavailable for the club’s remaining South African Premier League games and subsequently the Afcon second round qualifiers which are set to kick off on the weekend of May 16-18.
The 23-year-old suffered what was initially described as an ankle sprain in Chiefs’ Caf Champions League match against AS Vita Club on March 29 and an initial diagnosis had shown that he would be out for two weeks.
But after he failed to recover as expected, multiple scans on the ankle were done and the doctors finally came across the problem, realising that it was far worse than they had originally thought.
“Musona had another scan on Tuesday as he was not responding to treatment as he should have. It was revealed that there was an injury to the bone which didn’t show up on the first scan. He has been put in a boot for 4-6 weeks which means he will miss the rest of the season,” said a Kaizer Chiefs medical team member on the club’s website yesterday.
Chiefs coach Stuart Baxter added: “He has a very complicated injury. The bone is surrounded by a membrane, and the ligament is attached to that. That was detaching from the actual bone, but when we did the scans and there was no movement, it was lying in the right place, so it was impossible to see.
“It looked like there was no ligament damage, but as we started to move him around we realised that the membrane was moving away from the bone and therefore the ligament was becoming slack and not holding his foot in place. It was only when we started moving him around that we found the bleeding. So Knowledge is out for the rest of the season.”
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The news is a huge blow for Warriors coach Ian Gorowa, especially considering that Musona is one of the team’s key players.
It even gets more worrying for Gorowa who has another vital player Khama Billiat down with a foot injury.
The Mamelodi Sundowns player has also been ruled out for the season due to the injury and it is not yet clear if he will also miss the Afcon second round first leg qualifier.
Striker Nyasha Mushekwi, who is on loan at Belgian side KV Oostende, has also been ruled out for the season with an ankle injury and he arrived back in South Africa on Wednesday to continue with his rehabilitation. The severity of Mushekwi’s injury could also not be ascertained.
