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SPORT, Arts and Culture Minister Andrew Langa has hailed the Warriors for a spirited show against Libya in the semi-final of the Africa Nations Championship in South Africa on Wednesday night. The Warriors made history when they reached the semi-finals of the tournament designed for locally-based players. Ian Gorowa and his men, however, lost the match they dominated for 120 minutes on penalties.
“I had an opportunity to watch the Warriors playing in the group stages and I was very impressed by their tenacity.
“We can hold our heads up high as a proud nation because of these young men.
“I would like to congratulate the Warriors for an excellent performance in the entire tournament. They played as unit and under the circumstances they did well to represent the SADC region.
“That is such a big responsibility and they were calm at all times.”
Zimbabwe was the only team remaining from the Southern African region after Mozambique and hosts South Africa failed to progress from the group stages.
“Let this be the beginning of a new era in terms of support for all our national teams. I call upon the entire nation and corporate world to continue to offer moral and financial support with those kind gestures.
“I appreciate how difficult things are at the moment in the business sector, what you did for the team was marvellous please continue to do this even for other national teams.”
The minister’s mission has been to re-assure the national football team of the government’s support.
“We will not let them suffer ever again in a major tournament as what happened in years gone by where the performance of the team was affected by non-payment of winning bonuses, allowances and appearance fees.”
“Well done to Ian ‘Dibango’ Gorowa for managing to withstand the pressure and on behalf of the Government of Zimbabwe, we would like to assure him and his troops that we are proud of the way they played in the CHAN tournament,” said Langa.
Online Reporter