FC PLATINUM coach Norman Mapeza has been named interim Warriors coach to take charge of the international friendly match against Zambia at the National Sports Stadium on Sunday.
BY TAWANDA TAFIRENYIKA
The FC Platinum coach – a winner of the championship with modest Monomotapa, in 2008 – beat several candidates to the biggest coaching job in Zimbabwean football.
NewsDaySport, exclusively revealed early this month that Mapeza was the man Zifa wanted to take charge of the Warriors after they severed ties with Kalisto Pasuwa.
Mapeza also told this newspaper that he was willing to listen and talk with Zifa if he was approached.
And last night, Zifa vice-president Omega Sibanda announced the former Galatasaray player as the coach to take charge of the weekend match.
“Norman Mapeza is the coach who will take charge of the Warriors on an interim basis. He will take charge of the match against Zambia. He will choose his own assistants,” he said.
Former Warriors mentor Sunday Chidzambwa, Joey “Mafero” Antipas, Caps United’s Lloyd Chitembwe, Bruce Grobbelaar, Madinda Ndlovu and Rahman Gumbo had all been bandied forth as possible candidates to take over.
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Mapeza, however, has been leading the race with sources revealing Zifa wanted a strict disciplinarian like Mapeza to take the Zimbabwean game forward.
“Zifa wants someone with a strong character to take Zimbabwean football forward. Someone experienced — a disciplinarian like Mapeza. Of course, he will not come cheap, considering where he is employed, but at the end of the day, something has to be done to take him on board because what is needed is someone who can lift our football,” the source told NewsDaySport then.
Mapeza will however, have to prove himself to be given the job on a substantive basis.
He is returning to the national team, the job he left in 2010.
The first assignment on his return is a tricky match against the 2012 Africa Cup of Nations (Afcon) champions with both teams using the match as a dress rehearsal for the upcoming 2019 Afcon qualifiers in June.
With the match falling on the Fifa calendar, both teams are set to call up their foreign contingent for the high profile friendly match.
The Warriors, who were the sole Cosafa representative at the Gabon tournament badly need this practice match as they ready for the upcoming qualifiers.
Zimbabwe were drawn in Group G for the 2019 Afcon qualifiers, together with the continent’s sixth-ranked side, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Congo Brazzaville, ranked 17th, and Liberia (28th) in the qualifying draw conducted in Libreville, Gabon.
The DRC have already arranged a friendly match against Kenya to be played in Nairobi on March 23.
The soccer controlling body wanted to hire a foreign coach, but lack of funding has forced them to look for local talent ahead of the African Nations Championship and Afcon qualifiers.
Zifa decided against renewing Pasuwa’s contract following the Warriors’ failure to go beyond the group stage at the Afcon finals in Gabon.
Pasuwa’s men put up a brave show in the opening match of the campaign against the Desert Foxes of Algeria whom they held to a 2-2 draw and with a bit of luck, they could have bagged maximum points. They were, however, defeated 2-0 by the Teranga Lions of Senegal in the next match before they were embarrassed 2-4 in the last group match by Tunisia.
