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Tadious Manyepo in JOHANNESBURG, South Africa
JAIROS Tapera is expected to shuffle the team that started the 2026 World Cup defeat to Lesotho when the Warriors face-off against South Africa at Free State Stadium tomorrow.
Zimbabwe were uninspiring in their shock 2-0 defeat to the surprise Group C leaders at Orlando Stadium on Friday.
Now sitting at the basement of a pretty much open six-team group, they will need to quickly respond by getting maximum points against Bafana Bafana in Bloemfontein.
The squad left South Africa’s commercial hub for Free State early yesterday morning and were expected to conduct their first training session late in the afternoon, having rested on Saturday.
“We were disappointed with the result against Lesotho. We played good football but we often switched off where it mattered and we were duly punished.
“But we can’t continue to cry over spilt milk with the battle against South Africa beckoning.
“Yes, we will need to play around the squad and, certainly, we will make some changes. If you look at different areas in the field of play, judging from the manner with which we played against Lesotho, you will see that we really need to tinker with the team a bit.
“The changes won’t be wholesale though but we definitely need to do so. All the players are doing well and everyone is eager to perform to the best of their abilities and that is a healthy situation to have in the camp.
“Everyone is motivated and we will see how we come up with the changes when we face South Africa on Tuesday.”
Tapera could hand starting berths to goalkeeper Martin Mapisa after Donavan Bernard’s disappointing outing against Lesotho.
Bernard’s horror afternoon wasn’t helped by the tired approach from centrebacks Gerald Takwara and Teenage Hadebe.
This could see Tapera drafting in Godknows Murwira and Munashe Garan’anga.
“Without any doubt, we are looking at shuffling in the defensive third as well as in the midfield and see what works.
“We will train in Bloemfontein and that will guide us in seeing what could work for us. We are fully focused on the task at hand and hopefully we will be able to constrict South Africa.
“We have been in South Africa for long enough and we have fully acclimatised to conditions here and there is no reason why we should be bullied in the field of play.
“We have quality players coming from all over the world and that gives us wings going into the showdown against South Africa”.
Online Reporter