adminUp to Wednesday evening Zimbabwe was still waiting for some players to arrive. That on its own does not give the coach room to make clinical and tactically sound decisions in terms of preparations.
But with the Angolans as can be deduced from what was seen of their Under-20s, they do not leave anything to chance. They are better prepared and when the youth teams clashed Mateus Domingos who scored the solitary goal caused all the havoc.
Angolans have a player with a free role who plays all over the field, that player is technically gifted, so if we fail to deal with such a player we might pay dearly as did our Under-20s.
Among their key players are Nando Rafael who plays for Fortuna Dusseldorf in the German Bundesliga and Manucho who plays for Real Valladolid in Spain.
Zimbabwe will have to be tight in midfield and defence.
We have good players if we put on the wing guys like Vusa Nyoni in front of Onisimo Bhasera who will be at leftback. This could stop our opponents from attacking on the wings. On the right either Noel Kaseke or Carlington Nyadombo and Oscar Machapa can win balls in wide areas thereby thwarting their wing play.
This would give us room to tighten our defensive link as we would be having twin midfield with Khama Billiat and Knowledge Musona or Takesure Chinyama.
Chinyama can play at the top as he can use his big body to hold the ball while Musona or Billiat play a roving role below the big man. Billiat and Musona have good technical abilities, they are our most gifted players, they can create chances for themselves and others.
We just have to make use of what we have, Arnold Chaka, a strong defender and Innocent Mapuranga have been very strong and could form the defence partnership.
The Warriors must not embarrass themselves in front of the home crowd by playing badly.
Gumbo could engage a 4-4-2 formation, he did not have enough time to prepare his team unlike Angola who have been together much longer and played a friendly match against Moroka Swallows.
Our predicament as Zimbabwe is the Asiagate saga, it has limited our selection options with some of the in form players like Mthulisi Maphosa, a combative midfielder and forceful strikers like Nyasha Mushekwi and Kingstone Nkhatha not available.
The tie looks like a 50-50 affair.
Zimbabweans must attend enmasse and become the 12th player.
Taking the match to Rufaro was a positive move, it will bring many people and the noise should lift the players.
This on its own will give the Warriors a psychological edge over opponents and should be key to the result.
The players must forget about Zifa challenges and turn our problems to an advantage.
Our other challenge is we are always assembling teams instead of developing some. We use players from average leagues around.
The Angolans have players like Rivaldo playing in their league, they are getting more competitive and in the last five years they have been to the Afcon finals and the World Cup. They have enjoyed better successes but it should be our players’ challenge not to read too much into statistics and prove a point and play to qualify for the Afcon finals.
The boys must rise to it and raise our flag higher, we cannot afford to lose to Angola remember the sad exit from the African Under-20
Championship qualifiers where we lost at home 1-0 in the first leg and failed to travel for the return.
The boys’ win will help remove that dark cloud and give the country a glimmer of hope for the future.
*About the writer; Dumaza Dube is a teacher with a Diploma in Sports Studies with experience in junior coaching and qualified development coach who holds a Caf C Licence, Olympic Solidarity Youth Development Coaching Certificate and all Zifa Levels.
He has been credited with discovering Joel Ngodzo, Zephaniah Ngodzo, Ntokozo, Simon Njeleza, Njabulo Nyoni, Maurani Phiri, Ndumiso Khanye, Moodley Njeleza and Hama Zizi.
He is the national Under-15 coach and took a junior team to the Youth Olympics in 2010 which had Akim Mpofu who recently left on a football scholarship to the US, Stanford Chavingira, Prichard Mpelele Mwamba, Dynamos’ Albert Matova, Mgcini Sibanda and several boys at Aces Youth Academy.
Online Reporter