adminGrace Chingoma Senior Sports Reporter
DESPITE calls by Young Warriors coach Jairosi Tapera that his charges should continue training as they prepare for the return leg of the 2017 CAF African Under-20 Championships qualifier against Cameroon on June 10, the team yesterday broke camp.
The Young Warriors were held to a goalless draw by the West Africans at the National Sports Stadium on Sunday.
They will have to dig deeper to remain on course to progress to the last round of the qualifiers.
ZIFA communications manager Xolisani Gwesela said the dates for the next training camp will be announced in due course.
“It is important that they train but for now they have to break camp and it is just for a short period. We will announce the new dates for the camp,” said Gwesela.
Tapera was hoping that they could mask their first leg shortcomings by having a lengthy training camp.
The former FC Platinum coach blamed poor preparations as his charges were held at home after just training for three days.
He was irked by the fact their opponents were in camp for the past three months, where they had an opportunity to play international friendly matches against Ghana, Burkina Faso and Morocco prior to the weekend game.
“Even if you were to say we still fancy our chances in Cameroon, are we going to be given enough time to prepare?
“Are we going to be given enough time to prepare? I thought we should not break camp and continue training, prepare ourselves and whatever is going to happen in Cameroon is something else but we have to be prepared,” said Tapera.
“Football is about preparing. Talent is only shown because they have been shaped, they have been moving around with the ball.
“But if you are going to just pick somebody from home, yesterday, I had to pick Obert from home, and trained for 30 minutes, a national team player?
“If you don’t prepare you are obviously preparing to fail, that is the naked truth about football,” said Tapera.
Cameroon coach Cyprian Besong Ashu said they were going to do their homework.
“We are going back home to the training field and try to perfect some of our collective play and our finishing and we expect to get a good game back home.
“We are not happy with the draw because it was an average performance from us, we can go two gears up and play far much better and even if we created a lot of chances, there is still a lot to work on and we can do better.
“Back home it would be a different game. We can step up and I am sure we are confident and more positive of ourselves and we will give them a tough game back home,” he said.
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