WARRIORS coach Baltemar Brito has come out in full support of the bungling Zifa normalisation committee after a week in which the association made some embarrassing gaffes in the run-up to the World Cup qualifiers training camp.
The Warriors began the training camp on Friday afternoon where the coaches intended to assess players who can join the main team for next month’s World Cup qualifiers against Rwanda and Nigeria.
In a classic boob earlier in the week, Zifa announced that the Warriors would host Botswana in an international friendly, which was supposed to be played at the National Sports Stadium yesterday without first agreeing with the opponents.
They had to make a summersault 24 hours later, announcing the cancellation of the game and issuing an apology.
The Premier Soccer League was also forced to cancel league fixtures before bringing them back during the same period.
However, the Warriors training managed to commence as planned although some of the players could not make it because of the late calls while it was reported that some players received their national team call ups via WhatsApp texts.
Brito, who is yet to coach the team in an official match since his appointment last month, urged the football fraternity to trust Zifa.
“When we start the process of being readmitted into international football after the ban we should understand that the people in charge will do their best. But they will miss some things because we are starting from zero, so we need to be patient, we need to trust the people that are running Zifa, the normalisation committee,” he told journalists on Friday.
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“We know that they are doing their best but football needs time, the process needs time. We are here to try to help the committee. We are here to work together. We know that it's a hard task for the committee and even to us, but we have some hope and we will do our best to provide good performances and to make Zimbabweans proud,” he added.
A total of 20 players were part of the training camp and just seven of them ply their trade outside the country with defender Munashe Garananga the only European-based player.
Players such as veteran goalkeeper Washington Arubi, Divine Lunga, Ronald Pfumbidzai, Tatenda Tavengwa, Knox Mutizwa and Never Tigere, who have been in the national team before, have an opportunity to impress the coaches.
While he bemoaned the lack of a friendly match, Brito said the technical team will make the most of the training camp in preparation for the World Cup qualifiers.
“We are not here to make excuses, we are here to try and find solutions. Of course we don’t have a friendly match, it’s a setback in terms of preparations. But we are not worried about it right now because we are focused on enjoying this camp. We know that everyone will do their best to try to provide the best conditions possible
“Of course it would be better if we could assess everyone, unfortunately the time was too short to invite the players based in Europe into camp. "(But) we are trying to collect maximum information on some of them. We are trying to do our job from here. This is not the time to blame anyone, but a time to understand that soon we have very important games for Zimbabwe football.
Zimbabwe are in Group C for the World Cup qualifiers alongside Nigeria, South Africa, Rwanda, Benin and Lesotho.
They kick-off their campaign against Rwanda away from home on November 13 before hosting Nigeria seven days later.
Meanwhile, the Mighty Warriors play the bronze medal match against Mozambique at the Cosafa Women Championships in South Africa today.
