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Petros Kausiyo Deputy Sports Editor
BELGIAN coach Tom Saintfiet has heaped praise on the Warriors following their qualification for the 2017 African Cup of Nations finals, revealing that he had always believed in the qualities of the Zimbabwean players.

The Belgian’s tenure as Zimbabwe coach lasted just one day before he was bundled out of the country for flouting immigration laws following his farcical appointment by ZIFA into a set-up that already had Norman Mapeza as head coach.

That deportation triggered an ugly fight between Saintfiet and ZIFA which later spilled into the corridors of FIFA and threatened to scupper Zimbabwe’s participation in the qualifiers for the 2022 World Cup in Qatar.

Yesterday Saintfiet saluted the National Football Association of Zimbabwe president Philip Chiyangwa.

“Congratulations with the deserved qualification for AFCON 2017!!! Great job! That was my ambition too in 2010 when I arrived in Zimbabwe, the quality was always there, and it seems that now the structure and organisation is also up to level to reach the expected result,” wrote Saintfiet.

“Good Luck.”

The Begian copied his correspondence to Chiyangwa’s sponsor Wicknell Chivayo.

Crucially the Warriors are now set to be the flag bearers for the Southern African region as their neighbours who include Zambia, Angola, Mozambique, Lesotho and South Africa failed to make the grade into the 16-team tournament.

But for coach Callisto Pasuwa and the home-based Warriors contingent, there was very little time to celebrate the achievement that saw him becoming only the third coach after his mentor Sunday “Mhofu’’ Chidzambwa and Charles Mhlauri in an elite class that has guided Zimbabwe to the Nations Cup finals.

This is because the 44-year-old coach and his local troops were back at work yesterday conducting two training sessions ahead of the start of their 2016 COSAFA Castle Cup campaign.

The Warriors will fly out to Namibia tomorrow where they will begin their COSAFA Castle Cup title bid with a date against plucky Swaziland on Saturday.

Pasuwa insisted there was no time to party over the Warriors’ Nations Cup qualification as there was a job to be done in Windhoek.

The former Dynamos coach said as his foreign legion led by skipper Willard Katsande trooped out of camp, the locals who will do duty in the tournament that will run from June 11-25 were beginning work.

“Yes it is a great achievement to qualify for the African Cup of Nations and I think it is every coach’s wish. It has always been my dream too and up to now I cannot believe it has happened because it seems to have come too early in my coaching career.

“I thought it would need a number of years coaching national teams before achieving this.

“I thank God that we have made it to the Nations Cup but we only had Sunday night to celebrate and now we must focus on the COSAFA Cup.

“We have had two training sessions and so far it is looking good. We need to give this COSAFA squad which has a lot of the Under-23 players as much support as we can,’’ Pasuwa said.

The Warriors coach rested the quartet of goalkeeper Tatenda Mukuruva, defenders Hardlife Zvirekwi and Elisha Muroiwa and midfielder Danny Phiri from yesterday’s COSAFA Castle Cup preparations because they had been involved in the Nations Cup 3-0 thrashing of Malawi at the National Sports Stadium the previous day.

Mukuruva, Zvirekwi and Muroiwa played the full match while Phiri rose from the bench as the Warriors secured their place at the Gabon tournament with the luxury of a game to spare, their final group qualifier against Guinea in Conakry in September.

Pasuwa said he was happy that most of the players are available for the COSAFA Castle Cup had either previously played for the Warriors or were members of his Under-23 side that did well to reach the African Games in Congo Brazzaville last year.

“Most of them have been playing in the national team which is a plus for us.

“My only worry is that we might face some problems with some PSL clubs as it not yet clear whether there will be a problem of last minute withdrawals of players .

“There are some clubs like Chicken Inn and Harare City where I picked more than two players but we really needed them because there will be some strong teams at COSAFA,’’ Pasuwa said.