The Zimbabwe national senior soccer team, The Warriors, begin their 2025 African Cup of Nations (Afcon) campaign in September with a trip to bogey side Kenya.
The Warriors will host powerhouse Cameroon, although the team will most likely play away from home since the country does not have suitable facilities. The Warriors have an away trip to Namibia, host the Brave Warriors, an away trip to Cameroon and a home match against Kenya.
All the six group matches will be played between September 2 and November 19 which means a hectic schedule for teams.
For The Warriors, the going is even tougher due to a host of problems, some man-made.
It has a temporary football association in the form of a three-member normalisation committee that failed to stabilise the situation and had its tenure extended by six months.
The Warriors do not have a substantive coach as interim coach Jairos Tapera’s tenure ended last month and the normalisation committee has not said anything about the appointment of a substantive coach.
When the Manica Diamonds coach was appointed on an interim basis, the normalisation committee said it needed time to come up with a substantive coach.
It is clear now that The Warriors will play all their home matches away from home as they do not have a Caf-certified stadium to host matches, which deprives the team of the home advantage.
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Zimbabwe has played two World Cup qualifying home matches in other countries and the results have been disastrous. After picking a point against Nigeria in November, The Warriors last month succumbed to a 2-0 loss against Lesotho at an adopted home in South Africa.
The 12th man, as supporters are called, have always played a blinder in motivating the team when the chips are down.
The world over, teams have created fortresses at which they are a hard nut to crack at home. Teams that come to mind include Liverpool (Anfield), Bayern Munich (Allianz Arena), Barcelona (Camp Nou) and Real Madrid’s Santiago Bernabeu.
Former Warriors captain Ovidy Karuru last week implored the government to speed up renovations at the National Sports Stadium to enhance the team’s chances of qualifying for the 2025 Afcon finals.
“The authorities should try to make the stadium ready for our home games and I’m sure they will also see the difference when games are being played at home. I’m hopeful that they will get it right,” Karuru said.
Government recently dampened fans’ hopes of watching The Warriors at the National Sports Stadium after it said it was adopting a long-term strategy for the National Sports Stadium's rehabilitation.
Finance deputy minister David Mnangagwa recently said the government was working on a new strategy to rehabilitate the National Sports Stadium. The plan, Mnangagwa said, had seen the government engaging private sector players to see how best it could create a vehicle that could be listed as a real estate investment trust on the Victoria Falls Stock Exchange.
“What that will enable is to allow pension funds, private players and Zimbabweans in general, to crowdfund for the refurbishment of the National Sports Stadium,” Mnangagwa said.
It seems all the attention has been shifted to sprucing up the country’s roads ahead of next month’s Sadc summit and The Warriors are not part of the plan.
