Warriors coach Jairosi Tapera is confident that his team can recover from their shock defeat to Lesotho in their Group C 2026 Fifa World Cup qualifier when they take on South Africa on Tuesday.
Tapera believes that his team has what it takes to cause an upset against Bafana Bafana, who forced a draw against Nigeria away from home on Friday.
Zimbabwe suffered a major setback in their quest to qualify to the World Cup for the first time with the 2-0 defeat at Orlando Stadium.
This left them rooted to the basement of the six nation table with just two points from draws against Rwanda and Nigeria.
But the group is still wide open as table toppers Lesotho have so far collected five points.
Zimbabwe's road to recovery is, however, a tough terrain as they take on Hugo Broos' Bafana Bafana, who will be targeting full marks at home.
Tapera said he will use today and tomorrow to try and correct the mistakes they made against Lesotho.
Zimbabwe conceded from a set piece, which they should have dealt with better as well as a defensive mistake.
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"We need to rectify certain problems and we have a day or two to do that. We need to have a word with the players. They are professionals and I am confident that we will get things right ahead of the next match," Tapera said before adding that they will approach the Bafana game with their tails up.
"The game that we lost is history, the Bafana Bafana game is a different game altogether. We have time to sit down and organise and probably watch one or two games that Bafana Bafana have played and see how we can react to the demands of playing them. I am sure we can improve against Bafana Bafana.
“We need to work on our defence and we need to work on the set pieces. Against Lesotho we had so many free kicks and so many corners, but we just couldn't put the ball into the back of the net.
"We need to work on the movement of strikers and wingers so that we have more crosses into the box. We had so many chances in this match, but we couldn't convert. It's worrisome that we concede, but we don't score. We have to sit down and analyse.
“We have to be men enough to admit that we have failed ourselves in this match, but we have to see how we can move on and prepare better for the next assignment. This is football, the way we lost today is the way we can win against any other team tomorrow,"
It will be interesting to see how Tapera will approach this one, but the technical team has since called in Ngezi Platinum Stars midfielder Richard Hachiro into camp.
He has praised the crop of players that he has in camp, but demanded more time training them.
"I think we have the talent, what we only need is to have ample time to work on that talent so that there is coercion."
Broos is wary of every team in the group although he has previously stated that he is targeting three points against Zimbabwe.
“Our group is not of top countries, but it is very tricky, look at the results after three games and it is unbelievable. This is something that was the biggest change at Afcon where small countries progressed," he said.
“You see with the results of teams, who are in the second and third round, it was teams that you normally don’t expect at Afcon. And this is the problem in our group because any team can win against any other team.”
With Broos in charge Bafana Bafana claimed four points against the Warriors in their last two competitive matches with a nil-all draw in Harare and a win at home.
