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Grace Chingoma Sports Reporter
CHICKEN Inn striker Edmore Chirambadare’s debut with the Warriors might have to wait a little longer as he was battling to secure a fresh passport by yesterday following the expiration of his travel document this week.
The 22-year-old is part of the squad preparing to face Comoros in the Africa Nations Championships at Rufaro tomorrow.
Chirambadare announced his arrival on the domestic scene where he is the leading Premiership Soccer League scorer with eight goals.
He has already won the Castle Lager Player of the Month award twice.
He helped Tsholotsho Pirates gain promotion last season from the Southern Region where he finished as the top goal scorer.
Yesterday, coach Callisto Pasuwa talked about the difficult week they had leading up to tomorrow’s game.
“I think of the two days that we started, we have been experiencing problems and first day it was transport as we got it late,” said Pasuwa.
“But the training has gone on well and all the 25 players are ready expect for Edmore (Chirambadare) who has an expired passport but he is training with the team hoping that he we will get the passport before the match.
“The combinations are a problem because of limited time and we are playing matches as if we are playing money games.”
The former Dynamos coach said while they had got results with poor preparations it was not ideal for the national team.
“I hope if I go on the receiving end they (ZIFA) will still support me,” he said.
“One team that I am afraid of is Comoros. We have been pulling results without preparations but we need to pull our socks.
“Remember, we once drew in one of these matches (against Swaziland) when everyone was expecting a victory.
“We need to be very careful, to be compact. We don’t want to leave spaces at the back. We have to be cautious.”
The Warriors training did not go without incident as the team first went to Gwanzura for training and clashed with the visitors who had also turned up at the same venue.
The hosts then had to shift to Rufaro and started their training a little bit late as the ever bungling ZIFA struggles with even small house keeping issues like where the teams would be training on a specific day.
Comoros coach, Abderemane Ahmed Chomite, said Zimbabwe were a better football nation than his country.
“This is the second time we are playing in the CHAN qualifiers so we will respect Zimbabwe because we know they have more experience.
“But when you play a game you want to win. We will try to play a good match. We know Zimbabwe is a strong team with more experience than Comoros.
“If we draw it would be a good result for us. But it is very difficult to win against Zimbabwe but football is a game. We are learning as a country and it is good experience to play a country like Zimbabwe.
“Our first match was against Mauritius in the previous CHAN qualifiers and we lost in the preliminary round and this time we are hoping to go beyond the preliminary stage,” he said.
The coach said his team doesn’t get as much exposure as Zimbabwe.
“Football is the most popular game in Comoros but we don’t have much experience because Comoros have four islands.
“So, when we have to play, we have to fly not like Zimbabwe who can go by road to Zambia so we are not exposed as it is expensive to fly.
“However, when it’s the national team, like last week we played Burkina Faso (Africa Cup of Nations), we have professional players coming from leagues in France and other countries.”
Comoros have been in camp for one week.
They hailed ZIFA for the warm reception.
“Harare is a nice place, nice people. Everything is okay and we hope we will host Zimbabwe in our country warmly like what the Zimbabwe Football Association did to us.
Online Reporter