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Sports Reporter
JUNIOR football development experts have called on Zimbabwean football authorities to look beyond just participating in the upcoming Under-17 and Under-20 COSAFA/AFCON qualifying tournaments.
Speaking to the Zimpapers Sports Hub, grassroots football development coaches Patridge Muskwe and Lloyd Chigowe, who is also the interim head coach of Harare giants Dynamos, said junior national football teams should be taken seriously as they hold keys for future national team success.
The Zimbabwe junior teams were involved in the draws for the men’s COSAFA Under-20 set to take place in Mozambique later this month as well as the men’s and women’s COSAFA Under-17 tournaments pencilled for end of the year in the same country.
However, there is a lot of uncertainty as the ZIFA Normalisation Committee is yet to appoint the technical teams for these teams despite the impending assignments.
Muskwe said ZIFA should not wait for international tournaments to start running around forming the junior national teams and instead, craft a template and a system for long-term benefits.
“Our football needs proper planning,” he said.
“Do we have to start at Under-17 or do we need something of a five-year plan to come up with 17-year-olds who can compete at the World Cup or AFCON at par with the top nations?
“We have a problem of doing things haphazardly. But that is not the correct way to go with football development. We should start being serious with our national teams at the development level.
“We need to build these players over time. For instance, with our Under-17 team, we should have identified these boys at 15 years old and kept them together in the system for at least two to three years. You will see that at the Under-20 level, we will not have a problem because of the continuity.”
The selection of junior national teams has been criticised for excluding deserving talent in the peripheries of the country because of a lack of proper development structures.
“We need to have proper structures from district, provincial to national level. The authorities should also employ the right people in development, not based on connections.
“As a country, we also need a football culture, and get the players exposed to that at a tender age so that we avoid surprising these youngsters when they get called into the national team.
“The problem is we only try to assemble teams when we have a tournament in sight. Sponsors also mainly come in to support football when the senior team is involved in serious tournaments; and there is nothing for development. But when the grassroots suffer, the senior national team will suffer as well,” said Muskwe.
His counterpart Chigowe, who is also chairman of the Zimbabwe Junior Football Development League, said there is more to benefit from structured football development.
To his disappointment, junior football is not even recognised in the ZIFA assembly despite the association receiving grants from FIFA that should anchor the development.
“The issue of juniors taking their place in the ZIFA council should not even be a subject for debate as juniors are the bedrock of football development in Zimbabwe.
“It’s those that seek the demise of football that fight the return of the ZJFDL to the ZIFA assembly,” said Chigowe.
The Zimbabwe Under-20 side headlined the recent draws for the three COSAFA competitions.
The Young Warriors will face hosts Mozambique in Group A of the TotalEnergies Under-20 AFCON 2025-COSAFA Qualifier, which also has Botswana and Eswatini.
The tournament will be held in Maputo from September 26 to October 5.
Zimbabwe were also involved in the draws for the TotalEnergies CAF Under-17 AFCON 2025 — COSAFA Qualifier as well as the 2024 COSAFA Women’s Under-17 Championship, which will both be in Maputo from December 5-14.
Zimbabwe Under-17 men were placed in Group B, which has Zambia, Namibia and Eswatini. The Young Mighty Warriors are in Group C which contains Zambia, Botswana, and Mauritius.
“For the record, these COSAFA tournaments will be used to determine the teams that will qualify for the CAF Under-17 tournament but our approach, where we do things at the last minute, does not augur well for development.
“We must participate and fight for qualification; it gives our elite youths exposure. My heart bleeds when l see novices trying to reinvent the wheel and ushering in daft methods of identifying talent for the youth teams. There is no shortcut in football,” said Chigowe.
Online Reporter