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Mehluli Sibanda, Senior Sports Reporter
AS part of getting the senior men’s national football team ready for the resumption of action in November, the Zimbabwe Football Association technical and development committee has proposed a friendly match for the Warriors in October.
The TDC met in Bulawayo yesterday and chairman Bryton Malandule said while they are mindful of the fact that there is no football action taking place in the country at the moment due to the coronavirus, there was however need for Zifa to be hands-on by planning ahead.
“We discussed the preparation for our upcoming national team assignments, we want to be proactive, yes, we know we are under lock down and that we face an uncertain situation when our football is coming back but we are fully aware that Caf have announced that we have got our qualifiers in November. We need to be prepared, we do not want to be caught unaware, if football does come back,’’ Malandule said.
Croatian Zdravko Logarusic, appointed Warriors coach in January this year is still yet to take charge of the team since he was hired and Malandule feels he needs to be given an opportunity to see some players before Zimbabwe return to action in the Africa Cup of Nations. Caf announced on 19 August that the qualifiers for Afcon will be played between 9 to 17 November with the Warriors to face off with the Desert Foxes of Algeria home and away.
“We have a new coach, it is very important that we prepare, that the coach sees his players. We are looking at having a friendly match during the international Fifa window of 5-13 October, we will talk with some associations to organise a friendly match through the secretary general’s office.
“As a committee we have made a recommendation that we need to play a friendly match during the international window so that the coach has an opportunity to assess his players, work with players that he has not worked with before. We will engage the Government to ensure we abide by the rules of the country in terms of the health protocols, how we are going to play the match if we are going to play in Zimbabwe, if we are travelling how we can travel as a sporting fraternity,’’ said Malandule.
Another matter deliberated upon by the committee was that of certificates that were not issued out to people who had taken part in courses. Malandule said certificates have now been made available to the partakers and those yet to get their documentation free to contract the association’s technical director, Wilson Mutekede.
“We had given ourselves a timeline that we want to address issues of certificates for courses that were previously done and the participants were not issued with certificates. We worked tirelessly and we are happy that for all our courses, that is level one and level two, that were done in the past and those that were done at the beginning of the year, all the course certificates have been done and issued to participants,’’ he said.
A Caf refresher course is being planned for all coaches with a Caf A qualification in October to be conducted over an online platform.
“We have organised with Caf to have a refresher course for all our Caf A participants, we are going to have a refresher course before the end of October, that is going to be conducted by Caf instructors, its going to be an online course using the Zoom platform.
“We are going to ask all our Caf A holders to participate in this course. The beauty of this course is that there are going to be certificates that will be issued by Caf for attending this virtual course. It is for the good of all coaches in Zimbabwe to make sure that they participate,’’ Malandule said.
The committee is made up of Malandule, Andrew Tapela (vice chairman), Nelson Matongorere, Wisdom Simba, Stanslous Nyachowe and Mutekede.
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