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THE Zimbabwe Warriors’ inactivity in this two-week international football break is something that will not help our beloved team’s quest to qualify for a second successive African Cup of Nations finals in 2019. Admittedly, our expulsion from the 2018 World Cup qualifiers for ZIFA’s failure to settle a debt owed to former national team coach Valinhos has left us with a number of problems.

One of them is that most of the quality opposition, whom we could have engaged for international friendlies during this window, have their World Cup commitments to take care of. The teams include the like of our neighbours Zambia, who are featuring in a crucial 2018 World Cup qualifier against Nigeria in Uyo today and South Africa, who have their own World Cup commitments against Burkina Faso this weekend.

The other thing is that while our boys are inactive, our major rivals in the battle for a place at the 2019 AFCON finals, the Democratic Republic of Congo, are in action in these World Cup qualifiers. This means their coach is getting more opportunities to assess his men in a very competitive environment, helping him to make the changes necessary to strengthen the team, while our coach doesn’t have the same exposure.

With a number of players who are based in the United Kingdom like highly-rated teenager Kundai Benyu, who plays for Scottish giants Celtic, committing their future to this country, some friendly matches during this window provided by FIFA for such games, would have helped our coach make a detailed assessment of such stars.

Such matches would also have worked as a platform for a bonding exercise, which is very important in football, where these new players come into the squad and get to know the dressing room culture of the Warriors. Our established star players like Khama Billiat who missed our last AFCON qualifier because of injury, could also have used such an international friendly match to ease himself back into the groove of playing international football now that he is back in action.

Players like experienced Dynamos skipper Ocean Mushure, who has been excellent for his club and impressed for the Warriors during the COSAFA Castle Cup, would also have been drafted into the main team for further assessment at this level of the game. The good thing about international friendlies is that the coach is not necessarily under pressure to win the match because the main objective is for him to use the platform to assess his players, including how they can play in certain formations and finding the best combinations possible.

For instance, we have noted for a long time that our Warriors lack a creative midfielder who can be the playmaker who creates opportunities for our stars who roam the final third of our attack and have the main responsibility of putting the balls in the back of the net.

Now and again, we have seen Knowledge Musona having to come very, very deep to try and gain possession, which then gives the opposition the chance to crowd him out and nullify his goal-scoring opportunities. Ovidy Karuru showed the nation at the COSAFA Castle Cup that he has the talent to be a creative hub of the team, the number 10 who also ghosts into the box to score goals, but starring at the regional tournament is one thing and delivering in tournaments like AFCON is another.

That is why it was important for our coach to be given a chance to have a look at such players, playing against tough opposition who do not have World Cup commitments, and there are decent nations on the continent who can give us a good run and the coach a fine assessment. Sadly, we have missed a golden opportunity, with ZIFA revealing this week they don’t have the money to arrange such a game in this window and are only working on arranging one next month where we are set to play Namibia.

Of course, we understand ZIFA’s plight when it comes to the mess they find themselves in, in terms of their finances, the current leadership’s case not being helped by a $7 million debt they inherited from their predecessors whose very failings resulted in us being expelled from the current World Cup qualifiers. But ZIFA have all-weather friends like football-mad prophet Walter Magaya who spent more than $100 000 in camping expenses for the Warriors in their last AFCON qualifier and the CHAN qualifiers, and he probably could have settled the bill to bring our players home for a game.

We have to find a way of helping our Warriors prepare for the AFCON qualifiers that are coming in March next year where we resume our campaign with some very tough matches away from home. We cannot afford to miss the next Nations Cup finals, a 24-team event in which the top two teams in our group will qualify, when we qualified for the last tournament, a 16-team showcase, with a game to spare.