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Sunday Chidzambwa

Grace Chingoma: Senior Sports Reporter

FORMER Warriors coach Sunday “Mhofu” Chidzambwa says while there is keen interest to know who will be Zimbabwe’s opponents at the 2017 Nations Cup finals in Gabon, the country should draft a masterplan for that adventure. The draw will be held in Libreville, Gabon, today.Group A will be based in Libreville, Group B in Franceville, Group C in Oyem with Port Gentil hosting the teams in Group D. The teams have already been slotted into pots basing on their performance in the previous AFCON qualifiers and the Warriors are in Pot 4 alongside minnows Togo, Uganda and Guinea Bissau.

“We all qualified for the Africa Cup of Nations and this means all the 16 teams going into the hat deserve to be at the tournament,” said Chidzambwa.

“So whatever group we are put in, we need to win the first match. We must aim to win the first game or draw then we can fancy our chances of progressing to the next round. “We must cultivate that mentality in our players even before we board the plane to go to the AFCON finals.

“Football has revolved, small teams can now beat big teams at such tournaments, but it all depends with the game strategy of your team.

“Whatever the opponent we get, we must try and beat them and in football it is possible.

“If you look at the two occasions we have been at the AFCON, we managed to win our last group match beating Algeria, a powerhouse and when the team went with Charles Mhlauri we managed to beat Ghana, another powerhouse.

“I don’t think we are far off from these people, but organisation, securing players in time and planning is everything when going for such a tournament.”

Chidzambwa said he expected competitive battles.

“We finished top in our group and had Guinea qualified ahead of us they would have been placed in a better pot than pot four,” said Chidzambwa. “So these rankings at times do not mean much, what matters is how a team will prepare for the tournament and how focussed they are. “The issues of bonuses, allowances need to be addressed here and not wait till we arrive in Gabon to start solving these monetary issues.”

The veteran gaffer said the Warriors have come of age and should do better than the team that played in Tunisia.

“Back then we were new in the tournament, but we should graduate from that mentality we had and aim to do well in our first match with a view to progress,” said the coach. “We are past the stage of losing with heavy score lines and we are going there to compete not add numbers.

“Look at our best player, Khama Billiat, he is dominating in Africa and we have many others who are close to Khama’s abilities and so I believe we can progress.

“What I have noticed in these tournaments is that players based in Europe, when they are at AFCON, they don’t play at their best maybe it is fear of injuries so there is no need to go there with a mentality that we will lose because we don’t have players in prominent Europe leagues.”

Draw format

Pot 1: Cote d’Ivoire, Gabon, Ghana, Algeria.

Pot 2: Tunisia, Mali, Burkina Faso, DRC.

Pot 3: Cameroon, Senegal, Morocco, Egypt.

Pot 4: Togo, Uganda, Guinea Bissau, Zimbabwe.