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THE Warriors’ disastrous 2022 World Cup qualifying campaign ends tomorrow when they host Ethiopia at the National Sports Stadium.
That this has been our worst campaign to try and dance with the big boys of world football is there for everyone to see.
Rather than progressing, as a football nation, we are clearly going backwards and this miserable campaign has exposed everything wrong about our national game.
The statistics paint an ugly picture of the state of our football with our beloved Warriors losing, for the first time in a World Cup qualifying campaign, four games on the trot.
We have only managed a point out of a possible 15 in our five qualifiers so far, which came at home in that goalless draw against Bafana Bafana in Harare.
We have only scored once in 450 minutes of action with that goal coming from the penalty spot when our captain Knowledge Musona converted a spot kick in a 1-3 defeat in Ghana.
We have failed to score in open play in all our five group games, including the two we have played at home.
Overall, we have not won at home in two years with our last victory, in our backyard, coming in the 3-1 CHAN qualifier against Lesotho in September 2019.
We have been beaten at home by our biggest rivals Zambia, a 0-2 loss in a Nations Cup qualifier in Harare, in March this year.
When put into context, the defeat was more because of our weaknesses, rather than the superiority of the Zambians, who have been so poor they will not feature at the 2021 AFCON finals.
It’s the third Nations Cup finals, in a row, which Chipolopolo will be missing and, just like us, they are already out of the running for the 2022 World Cup finals.
Clearly, what is beyond dispute is that the Warriors have been on a spectacular free-fall, especially in the past two years, and that we are now ranked 118, in the world, provides confirmation of our fall from grace.
The problem is that there doesn’t appear to be a solution in sight.
In football, the state of the national teams is usually an indication of the state of the game in a country.
It’s not just a coincidence that the best-run football associations have produced the best national football teams in the world.
There has been concern about the way our national game is being run, or has been run, for a number of years now.
And, the Warriors have been caught up in all this mess, with our national football team, losing their way in the jungles of international football.
When you have a national team, which hardly plays any friendly international matches, and which has only played one such match in the last two years, it’s difficult to expect the same team to punch according to its weight.
The only friendly international we have played in the last two years was a hastily-arranged encounter against the Flames of Malawi which did not attract most of the players who usually make our national team.
When FIFA then provided us with an opportunity, by turning the June international window into a period when we could play friendly matches, we decided against even playing one game.
The message from ZIFA was that they would use the COSAFA Cup as part of preparations for the World Cup qualifiers, but that never materialised as most of our regular players didn’t feature at the regional tournament.
So, without the benefits that come with preparations, our boys have just been meeting, two or three days before an international assignment, and then plunge into battle.
The coaches never get the chance to try out combinations, or formations, in friendly internationals where the pressure to win isn’t as intense as in the competitive games.
We are diving blindly into these big matches hoping for a miracle, expecting that one or two of our star players will have a great game and we will end up winning.
There is an old saying in football that if you fail to prepare, then you should prepare to fail.
We finished last, in the overall rankings, at the 2019 AFCON finals, after picking just a point, in the three group matches we played against Egypt, Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
We finished last, in the overall rankings, at this year’s CHAN finals, in Cameroon.
And, we again finished last, in the overall rankings, at this year’s COSAFA Cup, in South Africa.
In our last three appearances, at the finals of major international tournaments, we have played 10 games, failed to win any, drawn three and lost seven of those matches.
We have scored just five goals and conceded 17, picking only three points, from a possible 30.
Surely, it can’t get any worse than this and something has to give, for the sake of our football and for the sake of the pride of our nation.
We have changed the coaches, but still nothing is changing in terms of results, which probably suggests that the root of our challenges probably lies elsewhere, in the boardroom, at ZIFA.
On Thursday, the Kenyan government, disappointed by the way their football has become a laughing stock, with the Harambee Stars having been turned into whipping boys, took the bull by its horns and disbanded the body which controls the game in the East African country.
Admittedly, it’s a move which comes with consequences, including a possible ban from international football, by FIFA.
But, it appears the Kenyans are prepared to weather the storm, and endure the pain, for the sake of the future of their football.
Whether that’s a path we also need to follow will always be contentious but what is not questionable right now is that something has to give because our national game is now at the crossroads.
Online Reporter