Can Warriors make it?
WARRIORS _NEW

CALM BEFORE THE STORM . . . The Warriors line-up for their second CHAN Group B tie against Uganda at Athlone in Cape Town, South Africa, on Thursday and, after their goalless draw, now have to beat Burkina Faso at the same stadium on Monday to progress. — (Picture by Tawanda Mudimu)

Lawrence Moyo in CAPE TOWN, South Africa
ZIMBABWE Warriors’ hopes of making history by becoming the first senior national team to qualify for the quarter-finals of a continental football tournament are hanging by the thread and coach Ian Gorowa has a nightmare 72 hours to try and get it right on the final attempt on Monday night.

Two goalless draws in the Group B matches against Morocco and Uganda mean the Warriors have their work cut out for their final group game against Burkina Faso.

Zimbabwe are the ONLY team in the group not to have scored.

A win, by whatever margin against Burkina Faso, will take the Warriors to the quarter-finals on five points regardless of what happens in the other match between Morocco and Uganda.

This is because Morocco are on two points and if they beat Uganda, they will also amass five points while Uganda will be stuck on four points.

If Uganda beat Morocco then the Cranes will win the group with seven points while the Atlas Lions return home.
If the game ends in a draw, Uganda will move to five while group favourites Morocco exit with three points from three draws.

In the event of draws in both matches, Uganda will go though leaving Zimbabwe and Morocco to be decided on goals scored.
Thus if the Warriors have to draw, it has to be a high-scoring draw.

But while the permutations look straightforward, Gorowa has a tough time deciding his line-up for the do-or-die encounter.
Burkina Faso had looked like the Group B’s punching bags and they were on their way out on Thursday night, but the late equaliser against Morocco changed all this.

They are suddenly in the race and they need to beat Zimbabwe while hoping that Morocco beat Uganda for them to sneak into the quarter-finals.

That means Burkina Faso will be fired up against the Warriors on Monday night because they have everything to play for, something the Warriors, in their current state, would not have wanted.

Failing to find the target in the opening two matches is a crisis and the immediate reaction will be to drop those who had been assigned to score goals against Morocco and Uganda.

Thus the axe should be falling on Simba Sithole (Dynamos), Ali Sadiki and Donald Ngoma while looking at Simba Sithole (How Mine), Masimba Mambare and Nelson Maziwisa.

The logic is simple –Ngoma, Sadiki and Sithole (Dynamos) have had more than enough chances to justify their selection and have failed and because this is a national team the tolerance level should not be higher than the two matches they have had.

Also the coach carried 23 players and if the Warriors are to leave CHAN without scoring a single goal, at least all the offensive players should have been given a chance to play.

But now this is another problem for the coach who does not believe in chopping and changing.
Making many changes for such a crucial game might create another problem.

It means the players will be using a deciding match to get a feel of the match and get to understand each other.
He might be thinking that the misfiring trio have learnt lessons and are now due goals to silence critics and keep Zimbabwe going.
That might seem as an experiment at a crucial stage of the group matches.

While Gorowa has been happy with his charges for everything else other than scoring, he now finds himself under pressure to win over critics.

Top of the criticism was having strikers who had a disappointing campaign for their clubs back home in the 2013 Castle Lager Premiership campaign and also using players in roles they are not used to at club level.

For instance, there has been criticism on the use of Ngoma in midfield yet he “can’t dribble or pass”. Ngoma’s presence in midfield has been criticised for stifling wingback Hardlife Zvirekwi who normally makes forward runs from his own half.

With results not coming from this formation, the presence of Peter “Rio” Moyo on the bench has become a subject for debate amongst critics.

The other has been the use of Milton Ncube as left-back, a role he hardly plays at club level.  In the qualifiers the Warriors looked down and out after failing to beat Zambia at home in the first leg of the final qualifier.

However, a dramatic 1-0 win on the road sent the Warriors through to their third successive Chan finals and Gorowa will seek comfort from that piece of history as his charges just need three points from the game against Burkina Faso.

But it’s going to be one hell of a wait!

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