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THE Warriors who will represent us in the two World Cup qualifiers against Lesotho and South Africa, beginning from next week, were named on Wednesday.
The squad features many regulars like Marshall Munetsi, Jordan Zemura, Teenage Hadebe, Tino Kadewere, Gerald Takwara and Donovan Bernard.
It also features new-boys like Douglas Mapfumo, who has done well at Polokwane City in the South African Premiership, goalkeeper Godfrey Chitsumba and forward Tymon Machope.
All the new-boys have expressed their excitement in being called to represent their country with Mapfumo saying this represents the pinnacle of his career so far.
It’s very likely that Obriel Chirinda would have been part of the squad had his season not been blighted by the ownership wrangle which has seen him being frozen out of action since the start of the year.
Chirinda is one of the best forwards on the domestic scene and it’s very likely he would have made it into the team and provided it with a different attacking threat.
Our attack, which will be led by Kadewere, appears to be our weakest link because the France-based forward has, so far, struggled to make an impact when it comes to national duty.
Maybe that explains why caretaker coach, Jairos Tapera, revealed that he tried, and failed, to get former captain, Knowledge Musona, and Nyasha Mushekwi to reconsider their retirement from international football.
Some will say that’s desperation but we all know that Tapera, too, was concerned about his lightweight attack and we feel that he should have tried to persuade Khama Billiat to also reconsider his decision to retire from international football.
Billiat is now back home and has shown that he still has the X-Factor in his game, despite all the injuries, which have been dogging him since last year.
We have no doubt that Billiat would have given us a different and special attacking threat and would have been a very good addition to this squad of Warriors.
We would have been a bigger threat, with Billiat in our team, than what we are right now.
The good thing about Billiat is that he also has this presence, and pedigree, of also intimidating the opposition and his mere presence, in our line-up, would have sent fear into our opponents.
And, in the familiar territory of the South African football stadiums which, for more than a decade, were his hunting grounds, we feel Billiat would have flourished for the Warriors in these two matches.
But, he is not in the squad and our focus should be on the boys who will represent us in those two matches.
Even if we don’t agree with the choice of the coach, the identity of the man who is leading Zifa or whatever, all that is irrelevant now.
What we need is to support our boys, back them all the way, and help them to represent our country with pride.
Let’s make them feel that we are in this together.
We can come back home with some good results.
Online Reporter