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Grace Chingoma Senior Sports Reporter
ZIFA technical director Wilson Mutekede believes the national team is integrating well as more young players are being fused with regular Warriors ahead of next year’s African Cup of Nations qualifiers.

Mutekede revealed the association is concerned about the future, with the current generation led by Warriors skipper Knowledge Musona and Khama Billiat expected to be around the ages of 29 by the time the 2019 African Cup of Nations is staged in Cameroon.

Zimbabwe have had a gap in junior development in recent times with no age-groups such as the Under-23 being active but ZIFA believe all is not lost out as young players are emerging from different fronts.

By the time if Zimbabwe manage to qualify for the next AFCON finals in West Africa, the sun will be setting on the international careers for the bulk of the players who were at their prime in Gabon this January.

But ZIFA are confident that the gap will be successfully bridged by a number of young Zimbabwean players who were either born in Zimbabwe and for Europe at a tender age or were born there and are taking an interest to feature for the Warriors.

Today, 19-year-olds Admiral Muskwe of Leicester City and Celtic’s midfielder Kundai Benyu together with 22-year-old Leyton Orient Macauley Bonne are expected to join the Warriors camp together with Nottingham Forest defender Tendayi Darikwa, who turns 26 next month.

“We are still looking for these eligible players to come and play for Zimbabwe. We still have a bit of time, but we need to integrate the upcoming players and the current crop of players.

“The gap was now there considering that we had the Under-23 age-group not participating for sometime now, so these players from Europe are bridging that gap.

“And we are looking at blending in the players for continuity, those who featured in the first qualifier against Liberia as well as some new players, assess them with a view of the next African Cup of Nations qualifiers which will resume next year.

“We will strike a good balance between all the players in terms of making sure all the professional players get game time in the two friendly matches against Lesotho and Namibia,” said Mutekede.

The ZIFA technical director says they are also looking at improving on the FIFA rankings, by doing well in Wednesday’s match against the Crocodiles of Lesotho in Maseru before they end the friendlies with another battle against Namibia’s Brave Warriors on Saturday in Windhoek.

Mutekede added that as the man at the helm of football development in the country, he has hit the ground running and has begun rolling out projects in that sphere.

“We are busy working on grassroots football as well as promoting setting up of academies which we believe will augment the association in terms of developing raw talent.

“There is a programme of provincial teams starting from the Under-15s, Under-17s and Under-19s which hopefully should build into regional teams.

“Development at those stages have been more of NASH teams but now we are coming up with the provincial teams, then regional teams which should result into football centres of excellence. That’s where we are going and we will roll out that next year.

“We are already identifying provincial coaches,” said Mutekede.

Meanwhile, the Warriors began trooping into camp yesterday with locally-based players, who finished their league matches, making their way to the camp.

Warriors’ team manager Wellington Mpandare said the “British brigade” left their bases yesterday and are expected to arrive in the country today ahead of the national team’s departure for Maseru tomorrow.