Lovemore Chikova
Deputy Editor
THE Warriors squad for the back-to-back 2027 Africa Cup of Nations qualifiers against Equatorial Guinea next week offers attacking possibilities and midfield authority, but the defence’s composition raises questions about experience, continuity and the ability to withstand pressure.
Zimbabwe travel to Cameroon for the first leg on Thursday next week before hosting the return match four days later.
The matches are important in a group in which the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Zimbabwe, Equatorial Guinea and Sierra Leone are competing for qualification places.
At first glance, coach Ramón Catalá’s provisional squad is an interesting mixture of established Warriors, returning players and footballers seeking to establish themselves at international level.
The selection appears to offer plenty of attacking resources.
Veteran Knowledge Musona is back, so is another veteran Tino Kadewere, while Tawanda Maswanhise, Bill Antonio, Thando Ngwenya and Tawanda Chirewa offer younger attacking options.
In midfield, Marshall Munetsi, Marvelous Nakamba and Andy Rinomhota give Catalá players capable of operating at the highest professional level.
Yet the squad contains a less comfortable story — the defensive department looks like the least convincing part of the team.
The concern is not that every defender is inexperienced or incapable.
It is that the squad appears to lack a combination of established defenders that gives a national team confidence when its opponents take control of a match.
Catalá has selected Jordan Zemura, Shane Maroodza, Kelvin Moyo, Peter Muduhwa, Emmanuel Jalai, Sean Fusire, Corbin Mthunzi and Tinotenda Muringai as his defenders.
The immediate problem is that several of these selected defenders are still developing their international careers, while some of the country’s other defensive options are missing.
The team faces notable omissions in the form of Munashe Garananga, who misses out through injury, and Divine Lunga, who was left out for reasons known only to Catalá
The other defenders with international experience and pedigree — the likes of Gerald Takwara, Teenage Hadebe and Brendan Galloway — are also glaringly missing from the team.
Their absence reduces Catalá’s options for constructing a defence around players with experience in demanding international environments.
This is not to say the defensive group selected by Catalá is devoid of ability.
Zemura has played abroad, Maroodza has gained experience in European football and Moyo, Muduhwa and Jalai have some appearances for the team.
Fusire and Mthunzi bring exposure to professional football, while Muringai, with some playing experience in Mozambique, has been outstanding on the local scene.
Yet the concern is whether these players collectively offer the right balance of experience, tactical familiarity and dependable performance at international level.
The central point is not that every defender in this team is a rookie; it is that the unit contains too many players whose international reliability still needs to be established.
This is where the absence of Garananga becomes significant — it removes an option around which the coaching staff could have built a more settled centre-back partnership.
Equally, the absence of Lunga, Hadebe, Takwara and Galloway reduces the available defensive combinations with experience at the international level, let alone in the dog-eat-dog world of African football.
The greatest risk is that uncertainty at the back could affect the entire team, with a weak defence becoming an attacking problem because the coach has to spend too many players protecting it.
This raises a question about squad construction: Why does a team with so much midfield experience and a lethal forward have so many uncertainties in the department responsible for protecting its results?
Catalá’s selection also raises an important point about the balance between investing in emerging talent and selecting players who can deliver immediately.
Mthunzi and Muringai may have bright futures, while Fusire and Maroodza are also young enough to develop further.
But a competitive international campaign is not a development tournament in which every promising player can be afforded time to learn through mistakes.
The challenge is to introduce young players into a structure that protects them, while allowing them to demonstrate their abilities, and that requires experienced defenders around them.
Without those safeguards, promising players can find themselves exposed to situations they are not yet fully equipped to manage.
Sadly, this defensive weakness was brutally exposed in the opening two matches of the campaign against Sierra Leone and the DRC, as the Warriors repeatedly struggled to protect both flanks.
The full-backs were often caught out of position, leaving dangerous gaps between them and the central defenders, and the result was a backline vulnerable to attacks down the channels.
Indeed, the DRC’s second goal at the National Sports Stadium exposed this defensive frailty, with the Warriors’ failure to close down flanks, track attacking runners and maintain defensive organisation, allowing the visitors to exploit the gaps with devastating effect.
For Catalá, the challenge is not simply to find eight defenders; it is to build a defensive unit that can protect the goalkeeper, support the midfield, withstand pressure and give the attacking players the freedom to win matches.
