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Lawrence Moyo in BLOEMFONTEIN, South Africa
A DAY after the gallant Warriors blew away their best chance to win a continental football tournament, a heartbroken nation yesterday struggled to carry the weight of a failed mission as the nightmare of Bloemfontein haunted millions of shattered souls. Having come close, yet so far away from a place in the final of the African Nations Championships, the process of conducting a post-mortem for a tournament, where the Warriors exceeded even their wildest imagination, was a very painful one for the players, their coaching staff and their supporters.

The pain came from the reality that the Warriors were not supposed to lose their semi-final against a Libyan team that did nothing, in their showdown, but defend for two hours and, somehow, force a penalty shoot-out from where they stole the ticket into the CHAN final.

The anger came from the fact that when the Warriors finally found a way past the Tripoli Wall, substitute Simba Sithole’s well-taken effort was disallowed for a marginal and controversial off-side call with his partner Donald Ngoma being punished for a ball that he didn’t touch when he was in an off-side position when the cross came in.

The heartbreak came from the manner of the defeat, a penalty shoot-out loss is always difficult to accept, but the fact that four of our players — Sithole, Peter “Rio” Moyo, Milton Ncube and Ali Sadiki missed from the spot should tell us that, when it came to the crunch, our nerves caught up with us.

There will be a lot of sympathy for giant ’keeper George Chigova, who conceded only one goal in five matches at this CHAN tournament, and saved two successive penalties in the shoot-out, on each occasion when the Warriors had been driven to the ropes, and a successful conversion by the Libyans would have ended the match.

On an evening when the heavens opened at the Free State Stadium, the Warriors will feel it didn’t rain on Wednesday, as their CHAN dreams were washed away, but it poured.

“Our solid defence, which has conceded only one goal so far in this competition, held on well and Libya hardly threatened our goal,” coach Ian “Dibango” Gorowa said.

“We did practice penalties, and always do, but in a match situation the pressure is different and you just can never tell the outcome.
“It’s disappointing to lose the way we did tonight. We dominated possession and had a few clear-cut chances but credit goes to Libya for slowing down the game to their advantage.”

“Congratulations to Libya for making the final and they should be saluted for this.”
Some will question why Gorowa didn’t go for the kill early, by throwing in an extra striker early in the second half, after it became very clear that the Libyans were just in the fight to defend but others will say that we created some decent chances, from six shots on target compared to just one for our opponents, and we should have converted one of them.

Zimbabwe and Nigeria were booked at the same President Hotel ahead of the CHAN semi-finals and, on paper, they were the favourites for tomorrow’s final at the Cape Town Stadium.

A final pitting the Super Eagles and the Warriors was already on the cards despite Ghana having a better head-to-head record against their neighbours.

Now the final will pit Ghana against a Libya side that has made history by going all the way yet winning just ONCE — their opening group match against Ethiopia.

They needed penalties to eliminate Gabon and Zimbabwe in the quarter-finals and semi-finals.
The final also pits two teams that were in the same group in the first round, making Group D the worst at this year’s tournament as none of DR Congo, Gabon, Mauritania and Burundi made it beyond the quarter-finals.

Uganda were in the same Group B with Zimbabwe and their coach Milutin “Micho” Sredojevic predicted a Zimbabwe versus Nigeria final in the build-up to Wednesday’s matches.

“After their unbelievable comeback from three goals down against Morocco in the quarter-final, the Nigerian team has fired on all cylinders and are playing more as a unit.

They are the highest scoring team in the tournament and are playing well.
“Zimbabwe defend in numbers and attack in numbers as well. I think their formation will outdo Libya’s 4-4-2 formation,” said Micho from his Kampala base.

However, both the Warriors and the Super Eagles suffered defeats in penalty shoot-outs having had the better scoring chances in open play.

While the Nigeria/Ghana game was more open, the Zimbabwe game was virtually one way.
Libya set out to defend for as long as it would take and a starting line-up with seven defensive players had analysts questioning the authenticity of the line-ups provided to the media.

It turned out to have been the correct information as Libya decided to defend and wait for opportunities on the break.
Their French coach, Javier Clemente conceded after the match that they had been outplayed by a Zimbabwe side that however, failed to convert dominance into goals.

“I am very happy that we have reached the final, but first l want to congratulate Zimbabwe for who were the better team tonight and did not give us a chance to play our game.

“This team remained believing they could get something out of the match and as often is the case with football we managed to win the penalty shoot-out.

“Zimbabwe is a good side and their striker number 19 (Simba Sithole) is a fine player as is number 10 (Kudakwashe Mahachi), 12 (Ali Sadiki) and 13 (Peter Moyo).

“I must compliment my young side for showing resilience all the way and now we play in the final,” he said.
Statistics show how Libya had probably played with penalties in mind.

They had 44 percent ball possession and made just four attempts at goal, with one on target, for the entire match of 120 minutes compared to 18 by the Warriors.

The Warriors were on target on six occasions compared to just one by Libya and to underscore the dominance, Ian Gorowa’s men forced six corners while the North Africans had two corners in 120 minutes.

Zimbabwe were caught offside on six occasions, including when substitute Simba Sithole thought he had broken the deadlock and took off to celebrate.

On the other hand Libya were never caught offside and this is because they never really went forward.
As coach Gorowa noted, Libya had a tactic to frustrate the Warriors and some of the tactics were dirty which explains why they had FIVE yellow cards.

However, these are just numbers and Libya are in the final because they stuck to their game plan.
The Warriors had their own game plan which, however, did not work and they now have to settle for the third-place play-off.

Gorowa is not seeking comfort from the numbers, arguing that Libya are in the final because they did better by forcing the game into a shoot-out which they won.