Despite the withdrawal from the squad of key players, Warriors coach Sunday Chidzambwa believes everything is still in their favour for them to overturn a first leg deficit and progress to the next stage of the African Nations Championship (Chan) football qualifiers.
by Kevin Mapasure
Namibia beat Zimbabwe 1-0 in the first leg last week, leaving Chidzambwa’s charges with a tough task of having to win by to least a two-goal margin for them to progress.
With such a huge task, the Warriors suffered one blow after another this week with the withdrawal of captain Ocean Mushure through injury, midfielder Gerald Takwara through illness and striker Talent Chawapihwa, who is finalising his move to South Africa.
Dynamos’ Denver Mukamba did not heed the call.
But despite all these setbacks, Chidzambwa remains confident that he can field a strong team when they confront Namibia at the National Sports Stadium tomorrow.
He believes they have good replacements and he is not worried about those that have failed to make it for the match.
“The first game in Namibia was the first half. We are now facing the second half, we are ready for the battle,” Chidzambwa said yesterday.
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“If we are to qualify to the next stage we have to beat Namibia by two goals. The onus is on us to fight it out. We have the crowd behind us and I think the boys are geared for the task. Namibia are not a bad side, they played well last week. They have good players that we have to close down and we also have to create meaningful chances and also put them away.”
Even without Chawapihwa, Chidzambwa believes they have a lot of players in the team who can give them the goals that they require to progress.
“We have equally good players in camp. We are going to field an equally good team. We have the likes of Abbas Amidu and Ronald Chitiyo, we have a lot of goals in the team.” The players had a single training session in the morning yesterday and were given time off in the afternoon.
The technical team, which also includes assistant coaches Bongani Mafu and Lloyd Mutasa, picked Yadah FC defender Denis Dauda as the captain for this match in the absence of Mushure.
In attack, Chidzambwa also has the talents of Rafael Manuvire and Marshall Mudehwe to call upon while Highlanders forward Prince Dube is likely to win a starting berth.
With the absence of Takwara, Caps United midfielder Devon Chafa has a chance of making it into the starting 11.
Dauda’s experience and composure at the back will also be key for the Warriors who will be looking to avoid conceding, which would make their task the more complicated.
Namibia may looking to capitalise on the Warriors’ quest for goals and score an important away goal.
The Warriors were wasteful in front of goal in the first leg and they will be out to improve on their conversion chances in this match.
