By Batsirai Sango.
The FIFA international break came and left, with world cup qualifiers for the 2026 global showpiece the main headline of the break, as the great continent of Africa saw its football gladiators taking to the football coliseum.
And for the nation’s number one team or shall I say the nation’s number one heartbreaker, mood spoiler the Warriors, the qualifiers were like one dark cloud cast on the nation’s most loved sport, as it further brought to light and vindicated every other article littered with criticism of the state of football in the country.
For starters with no football venue feat enough to host international matches, home matches have to be played away from home, and Orlando Stadium in South Africa was the venue for Zimbabwe’s home match against Lesotho on June 7th, 2024, which happened to be a Friday, and what a black one it was.
Shame is worse than death, being the only regional member in the COSAFA region without both a CAF and FIFA licensed venue, is just one of the prominent negatives on the plethora of negatives bedeviling the world most beautiful game in country.
As I have alluded already, Friday June 7th was indeed a black for Zimbabwean football and Lesotho was a happy customer as they put Zimbabwe to the sword 2 goals to nil, sinking the country’s football way into unprecedented lows.
Others may argue that they are no more minnows in African football, but truth be told these are opponents we would easily put away in the regional COSAFA tournament and to wallop Zimbabwe the way they did was no fluke, 2 goals without a reply.
With South Africa’s Bafana Bafana lying in wait 4 days later, considering the outcome of the Lesotho game, it was more or less a delayed match as the so-called Warriors had been short of pathetic and dismal.
South Africa still riding high from their 3rd place finish at the last Africa Cup of Nations in Ivory Coast, the script was already written, as again Zimbabwe was put to the slaughter losing by 3 goals to 1 in Free State at the Toyota stadium.
Disappointing as the results were, and how our chances of qualifying literally become next to none, it has once again confirmed everything from maladministration, poor preparation, incompetency of the highest order, when it comes to the affairs of football in Zimbabwe in respect to the national team.
