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Brandon Moyo,Sports Reporter
ZIMBABWE Under-21 hockey teams are set to leave the country tomorrow afternoon for Ismailia, Egypt where they will participate in the 2023 Africa Junior Cup (AJC) starting on March 12.
Two Zimbabwean teams will take part in the men’s and women’s sections of the prestigious event whose fixtures and dates have been revised from the ones Africa Hockey Federation (AHF) released last week after a late withdrawal by Ghana as well as Nigeria.
Due to the withdrawal of the two nations, a total of four nations will therefore compete across both the men’s and women’s sections thus making it eight teams.
Zimbabwe women will play the first match of the campaign when they face South Africa on Sunday March 12 before going on to face the hosts, Egypt on the following day and round up their fixtures against Kenya on March 15.
The men’s team will kick start their campaign with a Southern African derby against neigbhours South Africa as well and prior to their match, the hosts, Egypt will lock horns against Kenya. Zimbabwe’s second match will be against Kenya on the following day and a date against the hosts, Egypt will close off their group matches before the tournament heads to the knockout stages.
Zimbabwe’s preparations for the continental showpiece have been going well despite facing some sponsorship challenges which almost ruined the teams’ dream to participate at the high-status event.
Last week, the Hockey Association of Zimbabwe announced that they were 40 percent short of their target with time no longer on their side. They have held a number of fundraising initiatives of which some of them were successful.
Zimbabwe women head coach Brad Heuer said both teams are in high spirits and are confident of doing well, adding that it was been a challenging few days but are ready to fly the Zimbabwean flag up high.
“The mood in the camp is actually really good, both the boys and the girls are in high spirits, there is a lot of energy, excitement and also most importantly there is a lot of belief that we are going to do well and that both are going to qualify for the Junior World Cup. It has been hard, it has been a hard couple of days at the camp but it’s all good and we will be ready,” said Heuer.
The Junior Africa Cup will serve as a direct qualifier for the 2023 Junior World Cup, with the winner and runner-up qualifying. At the beginning of February, both teams took part in exhibition matches in Harare where they played against select teams at Saint John’s Trust Astro Turf and both teams won their encounters 2-0.
A couple of weeks back, the boys’ side was in Bulawayo where they clashed with local teams and managed to, once again produce good results, as a sign of their readiness to conquer Africa as they had been fine tuning for some time.
Despite sponsorship challenges, the two teams have shown to have what it takes to fly the Zimbabwean flag high on the international stage. — @brandon_malvin
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