Will Nees make history against Cameroon?

Curtworth Masango

Will Michael Nees be the first coach to inspire Zimbabwe to a historic feat of defeating Cameroon after the turn of the millennium?

Since the new millennium, Zimbabwe has faced Cameroon thrice, losing twice and drawing once.

With limited time, Nees is expected to mastermind a classic, tactical and technical approach if he is going to walk out victorious.

The match against Cameroon will be his second in charge, after playing to a goalless draw to Kenya at Mandela National Stadium in Kampala, Uganda.

The German expatriate came into his job with a huge responsibility of earning the Warriors a spot for the 2025 Africa Cup of Nations.

Zimbabwe have qualified to the AFCON finals on the last three consecutive editions they participated in the qualifiers in 2017, 2019 and 2021.

The Warriors missed the last edition without kicking a ball due to a FIFA suspension that made them ineligible to play in the qualification games.

But does Nees has the character to inspire the team against such a hurdle?

After the goalless draw against Kenya on Friday, he admitted that the match was the most difficult task for him on the dugout.

“As a coach this was the most difficult challenge I had so far,” he said.

Considering the Harambee stars have always been a tricky customer for Zimbabwe, it could have been worse, as the Warriors went into the match being the underdogs based on head to head statistics.

Despite self-made chaos in Cameroon’s camp ahead of these games, they remain a solid side and already sitting on top of the log standings after edging Namibia 1-0 on Saturday courtesy of Victor Aboubakor goal.

Against Kenya, the Warriors were found wanting in some phases and looked subdued from the wings with CAPS United right back, Godknows Murwira being overloaded as well as Jordan Zemura. Considering that against Namibia, Cameroon had nine goal attempts and five were on target while four were off target.

They are likely to ask more questions in front of the Warriors goal than Kenya.

“Our defence conceded zero goals against a difficult team to play.

“If you look at the right channel the distance between the winger and right back was too far they were isolated from each other. We have to work on that but it’s not bad,” said Nees.

Against Kenya ageing goalkeeper Washington Arubi was called into action once and was equal to the task.

And it is likely to earn him another bite of the cherry as Nees was convinced.

“Arubi had an outstanding game as a goalkeeper what would you want more,” he said.