Warriors coach Zdravko Logarusic has blamed poor preparations for the national team’s dismal performance at the African Nations Championships (CHAN) tournament in Cameroon.
The Croatian insisted that failure to have a running league meant that players were not in good physical condition to be competitive at the tournament. He said:
Without a running league, it was going to be difficult to get players in their top football condition as they spent the whole season without playing official football.
Yes, they might have trained with their teams but that was not adequate. Again, we got the green light to start training late.
Logarusic insisted that the players did quite well and were unlucky to lose 1-0 to hosts Cameroon in the tournament opener. He said:
Although we did not complain, that Cameroon goal came off a player in an offside position while one of their players had also handled before the goal was scored.
To hold the hosts in that manner despite the preparations is a sign the players did well. Against Mali, we also held our own particularly considering we had four young players who feature in the Under-23 team, Andrew Mbeba, Tatenda Tavengwa, Nelson Chadya and Shadrack Nyahwa.
Coming out with such a scoreline shows the talent we have and how well we played despite not being fully fit.
Zimbabwe was the first country to be eliminated from the tournament in Cameroon, losing all their Group A games to the hosts, Burkina Faso and Mali.