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rebuilding exercise.
The tournament, which makes a comeback after a three year absence, will be played in Zambia from July 6-21.
Speaking at the launch this afternoon, Pagels said the tournament had come at the most opportune time as Zimbabwe need more exposure to further their efforts to come up with a strong side following the disbandment of the national team by Zifa late last year.
“It’s a good tournament and we hope to use the opportunity to look at other players that we have. I am sure this Cosafa tournament is for locally best players only. Normally, we would need to have two teams; one for the Cosafa and CHAN tournaments and the other for the World Cup and Africa Nations Cup competitions,” said Pagels.
This year’s tournament will feature 14 teams, including guests Tanzania and Kenya from the Cacafa zone.
Zimbabwe, Zambia, South Africa and Angola were the top seeded teams and were handed byes from the first round matches. Malawi and Mozambique were also handed byes following the withdrawal of Madagascar and Comoros Island.
The eight lowest ranked nations from the region according to the April Fifa World Rankings were pooled into two groups of four sides each.
The remaining six top seeds enter the competition in the quarter-final stages. According to the draw conducted in Lusaka on Friday the Warriors, who are the holders after Sunday Chidzambwa and his men won on home soil in 2009, will begin their title defence at the quarter-final stage against the Flames after getting a bye in the group stages.
Group A contains East African guests Tanzania, Namibia, Mauritius and Seychelles while Group B features another guest nation from East Africa, Kenya, Botswana, Lesotho and Swaziland. The teams will play each other in a round-robin format, with the top sides in each pool advancing to the quarter-finals.
South Africa will take on the winners of Group A, while Angola await for the victors in Group B. The opening game of the tournament will be played in Lusaka on July 6 when Tanzania take on Mauritius.
Online Reporter