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Grace Chingoma
Senior Sports Reporter
WARRIORS’ coach, Zdravko Logarusic, is disappointed the proposed mini-league tournament is unlikely to take place this month.

This will force him to pick players, without any competitive match fitness, for the CHAN preparations which get underway on Monday.

Today, the coach will announce his provisional squad of 30 players that will go into camp on Monday.

The Croat will now have to rely heavily on his assistant coaches, Lloyd Chitembwe and Tonderayi Ndiraya, who have been relying on last year’s form book of the Premier Soccer League players.

“Of course, I am disappointed the mini-league is not taking place, we are missing competitive games, that’s for sure, but what we can do?

“We have to adapt to the situation, which is there right now, and that’s all.

“A player with competitive games, and a player without competitive games, is not the same, it’s very simple.

“We needed the mini-league but if league couldn’t go on we must adapt. Our players are better when they play competitive games.

“Competitive football is competitive game, friendly game is friendly game,” he said.

He said his assistants had a good understanding, and appreciation, of the bext possible players.

“We know from last year, how most of them played, I have my assistant coaches and we are trying our best,’’ Loga said.

“There is no current form and that means we have to adjust.

“On Monday we are starting camp. We have selected 30 players and, from those, we will choose 23 players before we travel.

“We selected some of the players from those we had picked for CHAN preparations in February and then we included other players.

“The club manager is busy sending letters to the clubs.

“We are looking for six friendly matches.’’

Despite the inactivity, the coach says they were ready to compete in Cameroon next month.

“We always go to compete, we know that we are not prepared but we are Warriors, we have to try our best and shouldn’t give up,’’ he said.

“Fourteen days of preparation is not enough plus players didn’t play all year so it’s not enough but our job is to play, our job is to try our best, be on the field.

“It’s not easy but we are trying to adapt.’’

Yesterday, Loga and Chitembwe were busy tying up the loose ends with team manager, Wellington Mpandare, at ZIFA House.

“When we got the green light from the Government, to start training, the first idea was to start training even straight after the Algeria match,’’ said Loga.

“Then we realised the clubs already had the greenlight to start training and I couldn’t take the players from the clubs.

“We can no longer lose more time travelling, so, we will play against FC Platinum, against Dynamos, and two other teams, my team manager knows all the teams he has already spoken to the clubs.

“We are going to play a minimum of four games but we are looking for more games because we have many players.’’

Zimbabwe will meet the hosts the Indomitable Lions on January 16 in the opening match.

“We are going to give them a break from 20 December to 28 December to go home for Christmas and, after that, they will come back.

“We expect after New Year, we will travel outside and play one or two friendly games and then go to Cameroon.

“They are talking with some Federations, maybe we will travel to Congo Brazzaville, or Kenya or Tanzania.

“The tournament starts on 14 January, so we should be there five days before.’’

He has a love affair with the CHAN finals.

“I finished number three with Sudan national team, they were the lowest-ranked team but I had two months’ preparations with Sudan,’’ he said.

“I started the preparations end of November, full month December and half of January.

“I prepared the team for two months and finished number three, here we prepared the team for two weeks, but we will try our best.

“The only problem is our players are not in competitive mode, that’s our problem.

“We haven’t got any chance to observe them to see them, on the place that we should see them, we couldn’t see them on the field because we are not on the field.

“The situation is so unreal.

“I can choose players and ten of them test positive so we have to take it day-by-day and game-by-game, nothing can be planned.’’