IN a few weeks’ time, the Warriors will plunge back into action in their quest for a maiden appearance at the FIFA World Cup in 2026 in the United States, Mexico and Canada.
We are currently second-from-the-bottom of the table in Group C with two points from our two opening games against Rwanda and Nigeria.
We drew both games, which were played in Rwanda, where we hosted the Super Eagles of Nigeria, and forced a 1-1 draw, because we do not have a stadium which has been certified by CAF and FIFA to host World Cup matches.
To many local fans, this represented a decent start to the campaign, especially considering that the Warriors had been inactive for a long time when we were serving a suspension from FIFA for kicking out the incompetent ZIFA leadership under Felton Kamambo.
Nigeria had to fight back for the point, needing a second half goal, which looked offside, to get the draw against us.
There are some fans who feel that Brazilian coach Brito, who guided the Warriors to those two points in those two games, did very well and should have been given the green light to complete the qualifiers.
However, the ZIFA bosses decided not to renew Brito’s contract, when it expired, at the end of December. The appointment of Norman Mapeza to take charge of the team at the Four Nations tournament in Malawi was just a temporary measure while ZIFA said they were looking for a substantive coach.
However, with just a few weeks before the qualifiers start, ZIFA have not appointed a coach and we feel that there is no need to appoint a new one at this stage because he will not have enough time to work on getting the best out of our players.
The best way for ZIFA to deal with this crisis, which they created for themselves, is for them to appoint one of these three men — Brito, Mapeza or Sunday Chidzambwa.
This is not a time for experiments by bringing in a coach who has little or no knowledge of the Warriors to guide them in the qualifiers during the matches coming up next month.
This is a crisis time where the Warriors need a coach who knows the players we have, their strengths and their weaknesses, because there isn’t time for one to starting learning all these things about our boys.
It’s not about coming up with the coach who is a favourite of the fans or who is not liked by the fans.
It is the time to come up with a coach who knows our boys and, at this moment, only one of these three men can lay a claim to say they know the strengths and weaknesses of our boys.
We are in a big crisis and we have to respond accordingly.
We are the only team without a coach among all the countries in the qualifiers and this alone tells us that what we are doing is very wrong.