The draw for the 2017 Africa Cup of Nations (Afcon) has been done and, as expected, the Warriors are in the “Group of Death”, where they will face Senegal, Tunisia and Algeria, football powerhouses on the continent.
Comment: NewsDay Editor
Algeria and Tunisia have previously won the tournament, while Senegal are famous for their mazy run at the 2002 World Cup finals.
These are all seasoned teams that have achieved and have qualified for the World Cup, something the Warriors can only dream off.
To say the Warriors have their work cut out for them would be a terrible understatement, they are by far the underdog in the group with a mountain to climb.
But that does not mean the task ahead is insurmountable and with the right preparations, the Zimbabwe national football team could be the fairytale story of these championships.
Unfortunately, the Warriors have missed out on friendlies in the two Fifa internationals’ calendar and these are not the sort of preparations they need ahead of next January.
Zifa has promised much in terms of friendly matches, with its president Philip Chiyangwa claiming there were several nations queuing up to play the Warriors, among them Nigeria, but so far, they have delivered very little.
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Now is the time for Chiyangwa to put his money where his mouth is and deliver on the promises he and his backers made to the Warriors when they qualified for the Afcon finals.
The issue of preparations has been repeated ad nauseam and Zimbabwe cannot keep failing because of shoddy planning.
The Warriors’ trip to Malawi last year was farcical and the journey to Guinea bordered on the comical, yet the country has a whole association mandated with making sure preparations for such games are smooth.
The Afcon finals are more than two months away and Zifa have no excuse for failing to ensure that everything is in place.
On a related note, what is happening to the Mighty Warriors and preparations for their own tournament next month is nothing more than an abomination and Zifa should be ashamed of themselves.
With less than a month to go to the tournament, the Mighty Warriors have not gone into camp and their preparations for the Africa Women Cup of Nations are shambolic to say the least.
The Mighty Warriors are treated like an afterthought at best and as second-class citizens at worst.
Women deserve to be supported as much as their male counterparts, but the treatment the Mighty Warriors are receiving is shameful to say the least.
The silence on the way the women’s team is being treated by Zifa from almost everyone is sickening and more needs to be done to promote them.
As a country, we have for long shot ourselves in the foot in terms of preparations for major sporting tournaments, but if we were to get it right, we could be a force to reckon with on the continent.
