Online Reporter
Lincoln Mutasa
Former ZIFA President
53 Livingstone Avenue
Harare
Re: Michael Nees’ recruitment as the Warriors coach
MICHAEL Nees was fired from his job as Warriors coach on Wednesday – exactly 16 months after your ZIFA leadership settled on him as the best candidate for the post.
The 58-year-old German coach won just TWO of the 14 competitive games which the Warriors played under his guidance, drew seven and lost the other five.
His only victories came against the same opponents as the Warriors beat Namibia twice in the 2025 AFCON qualifiers.
His other victories came before his arrival in Zimbabwe – a 4-0 win in an AFCON/World Cup qualifier came against Liberia (4-0) and a 2-0 win over Equatorial Guinea, when he was in charge of Rwanda.
Nees’ other win was a 2-1 victory over Zimbabwe when he was in charge of Seychelles.
Nees’ shortcomings were crudely exposed in the 2026 World Cup qualifiers, where the Warriors ended their campaign bottom of the table, without any win to their credit.
A humiliating 0-1 loss at the hands of Lesotho, in the Warriors’ final World Cup qualifier, sealed Nees’ fate and he will not be part of the team at the 2025 AFCON finals in Morocco.
Inevitably, questions should be asked as to why Nees was chosen, ahead of other coaches, as the man who had the best credentials to take charge of the Warriors?
Why did your ZIFA leadership believe that a coach whose record showed that he had only won TWO matches, in AFCON or World Cup qualifiers, since his arrival in Africa, was the best candidate to guide the Warriors?
Those two wins came against Equatorial Guinea (2-0, when he was in charge of Rwanda) and against Zimbabwe (2-1, when he was in charge of Seychelles) and did such a miserable record inspire any hope that this man was going to add value to the Warriors?
Did your ZIFA leadership believe that one of the few coaches to ever lose a game against Eritrea, a nation which is not even ranked on the FIFA rankings because it has not played enough games to warrant such a ranking, was the right man to add value to the Warriors?
Did your ZIFA leadership believe that a coach, who has never been to the AFCON finals, despite having been working in Africa for about two decades, was the best candidate who could help the Warriors finally make it out of the group stages for the first time?
Nees lost his first game in his African adventure when Seychelles went down 1-3 to the Warriors at the National Sports Stadium on March 30, 2003.
The Ndlovu brothers – Peter and Adam – scored all the Warriors goals with the Flying Elephant on target twice.
Nees has a consistent track record – he usually wins, at most, just TWO games.
That was the case when he took charge of Rwanda and that was also the case when he took charge of Zimbabwe.
He won just ONE game when he was in charge of Seychelles.
Ironically, one of his victories also came against Zimbabwe when Seychelles brewed up a shocker and stunned the Warriors 2-1 in a 2004 AFCON qualifier on June 7, 2003.
The late Adam scored for the Warriors in a 1-2 defeat on the Indian Ocean island.
The Warriors qualified for their maiden appearance at the AFCON finals after that campaign while Nees and his Seychelles finished second from the bottom of the table.
Eritrea finished bottom of the table with just one win in their six group games and that lone victory came against Nees’ Seychelles when the East Africans won 1-0 in Asmara on June 21, 2003.
It’s just one of four AFCON qualifying matches poor Eritrea have won since the turn of the millennium.
Yours In Sport,
ROBSON SHARUKO
You can hammer Nees or the Normalisation Committee all you want Sharuko but the Warriors have never, since 1980 when Nees was a mere 14 year old boy, won anything worth mentioning in any type of football language. One can challenge you on the number of coaches that coached the Warriors since 1980. Ben Koffie, the famous straight talker from Ghana who wants coached the Warriors, confidently declared that Zimbabwe Warriors would never win anything football significant even if God was to come down and coach the team. And that prediction prevails. The best performing Warriors were the so called Dream Team of Reinhardt Fabisch that beat Cameroon, that beat Egypt, nearly “missed” going to AFCON finals, nearly “missed” going to the World Cup finals blah blah blah. But when a hunter nearly misses his quarry repeatedly, where is his success Sharuko? The common denominator in all these “near misses” is the Warriors, that’s where the problem is, not in the coaches selected. Sharuko being a self-declared football God of Zimbabwe, you should tell us who you think is the best coach for the Warriors. You can’t just criticize without making suggestions. That’s not only unfair but rather unintelligent.
I for one have always criticised hiring of foreign coaches. It is just a mare waste of time and resources for we are Zimbabweans with coaches who understand their football, coaches who are even being hired outside Zimbabwe but we still don’t believe in our own self. What do we realy consider when masterlisting, shortlisting and interviewing these coaches? Why should we be seen to fail each time we carry out this exercise? Are we zombies or we are appointing for some kick-backs! Transparency and professionalism aren’t anywere close to where we do our business because each time this is done there are critics who are silenced by either threats of violence or juditiary action. Sometime back then we had our stars snubing the call for national duty but their reasons were not tolerated, it was like we can do without them but if our leadership is still that of threats and cohessive we are not going anywhere. Investigations were supposed to be carried out and corrective measures taken. I cry my Zimbabwe.
We have tried local flavour Canisius. Just take time to count how many local coaches have had a run with the Warriors. The number probably exceeds that of foreign coaches. So coaches aren’t the problem. It is our football. Something about our football is out of place. With dozens of football academies dotted around the country, the talent harvesting habitat must be really big. By the way Canisius, our local coaches understand our football fair and fine, but that is not the same football that other countries understand hence the Warriors get humiliated at every turn. Jordan Zemura’s comments after the Warriors lost to Lesotho sum up our problems.