Online Reporter
KAITANO Tembo has been drafted into the Warriors technical team ahead of the 2025 AFCON finals in Morocco in December. The former Warriors vice-captain will be one of the assistants of head coach Michael Nees.
The German coach will be making his maiden appearance at the AFCON finals. He has never coached at this level before and, after a spate of some poor results, the ZIFA bosses probably felt the German mentor needed a helping hand.
Tembo was unveiled at a media conference in Harare on Tuesday.Unlike his boss Nees, the man nicknamed Ngwenya has experience of playing at the AFCON finals.
He was part of the group of Warriors who were the first bunch of local players to feature at the AFCON finals in Tunisia in 2004.Tembo has been working as a coach in South Africa where, among other teams, he has taken charge of SuperSport United.
He has shown, for some time now, that he has the capacity to be drafted into the Warriors coaching set-up. We can say that he has earned his stripes, after years of working in the trenches of South African football, and his appointment is something that we welcome.
His first assignment will be in Durban next week when the Warriors take on South Africa’s Bafana Bafana in a 2026 World Cup Group C qualifier. For us, it’s a dead rubber after we crashed out of the race for a place at the next World Cup by failing to win any of the matches we have played so far.
But, we owe it to other teams in our group, who are still in the running for a place at the World Cup, to give it our best shot and compete very well against the South Africans. Tembo said he was proud to receive an opportunity to be part of the coaching staff for his country’s senior national team.
He thanked ZIFA president Nqobile Magwizi and his executive for giving him the chance to work with the Warriors. We believe that Ngwenya has just taken the first step of what will be a journey which will take him all the way to be the head coach of the Warriors one day.
He understands what it takes to be successful in the jungles of African football.Nees has some glaring limitations and this has cost us some games where we should have, in the worst case scenario, even gained a point.
For goodness sake, we can’t even understand why Nees has made some players irreplaceable even when it’s quite clear that they can’t justify their place in the Warriors side. For instance, Godknows Murwira is a dedicated member of the Warriors but Nees can’t justify that he is playing at a level where his presence in the national team can be justified.
Our prayers are that Nees will give Tembo a chance to give his technical input to the team. We hope that he won’t be a dictator and Tembo will not be there just to make up the numbers but will be there to add real value.
