Zimbabwe national team manager Dieter Kalus Pagels has hailed the Cosafa Castle Cup, which makes certain after a three-year hiatus, by saying that it will be a huge help to him in his efforts to rebuild the national team. Cosafa Castle Cup will be held in Zambia in the first two weeks of July. The national team was recently disbanded by Zifa. Pagels has said that this tournament is extremely essential if he is to complete the rebuilding work of the team. He has said that Zimbabwe should come up with a strong side in the near future.

Pagels has also revealed that he will be selecting only local-based players for this tournament, while also explaining his philosophy of having two teams that are capable of playing in two different tournaments. Pagels has said that the team with European based players will be challenging for the FIFA World Cup spot, while the locally-based players will be challenging for tournaments like the Cosafa Castle Cup that will be held locally. This tournament includes a total of 14 teams with Zimbabwe amongst the top teams along with the likes of South Africa and Zambia.

Zimbabwe come into the tournament on the back of a poor run of form, which has seen them lose three of the last five matches.

“It’s a good tournament and we hope to use the opportunity to look at other players that we have. I am sure this Cosafa tournament is for locally best players only. Normally, we would need to have two teams; one for the Cosafa and CHAN tournaments and the other for the World Cup and Africa Nations Cup competitions,” said Zimbabwe’s national team manager Pagels. Before the start of the tournament, Zimbabwe will have matches against the likes of Egypt and Guinea in the World Cup qualifying.

Zimbabwe national team manager Claus Dieter Pagels has said that he and the team will be giving their best in the World Cup qualifying stage despite the fact that they are unlikely to qualify. Ahead of the match with Egypt, Zimbabwe will be looking to qualify for the World Cup. However, they are in the last position of the group G after having played just three matches. Only the top team qualifies for the World Cup automatically. The top place is currently occupied by Egypt, who are a mammoth eight points ahead of them in the table. Still, Pagels reckons that his team will be giving their 100% in the matches.

Pagels was appointed as the Zimbabwe national team manager after the team failed to qualify for the 2013 African cup of nations. However, he knew at the time of taking the job that qualifying for the World Cup is going to be extremely tough. It has proven to be the case, as Zimbabwe have just one point to show in the three matches they have played. Ahead of the match, Pagels has said that he has seen the Egyptian team play in the last few matches, and he has identified certain areas to target in the opposition.

“I know they are a very strong team and that we are facing a tough mission in Alexandria. I watched their recent friendly games and know they are a very good team despite the fact that they lost in some of the recent matches. I also watched some DVD’s of their old games and know well what awaits us on Tuesday. I asked Zimbabwe Football Association to arrange some friendly games for us, and to leave for Egypt early but the financial situation couldn’t sustain that,” said Pagels ahead of the Egypt match.

The Zimbabwean national team manager Klaus Dieter Pagels has said that he is ready for his next test as the manager of Zimbabwe. Under the management of Pagels, Zimbabwe managed to register a 2-1 win over Botswana in a friendly match. Zimbabwe were coming into the match at the back of an indifferent form, which has seen them lose a couple of matches. However, Pagels has started his regime in the best possible manner after guiding the team to a victory. The next match for Zimbabwe will be World Cup qualifying encounter against one of the best teams in Africa – Egypt.

The match will be taking place in the month of March, and Pagels has said that he is ready to take on the Warriors test. Pagels tried to make several changes to the team by using a number of European-based players in the match. The tactic paid off quite well for the manager after his players were able to utilise their experience from playing regular European football into the match. Pagels has said that the players have had only two days of training, but they have been showing positive signs of gelling quite soon. Aside from the victory, the manager has said that he was pleased with the performance of his players.

“We worked well with the players. You know some of the players came from Europe, others South Africa, but we had two days training and it went well. They are young and good players. There were a few experienced ones, but most are young ones with a great future. So far so good. We had two days of training and then the game, so I think the more games we play the more the team will gel. Oh yes. It wasn’t about the win but the performance. The win was a bonus,” said Pagels.

The interim manager of the Zimbabwe National team, Klaus-Dieter Pagels has said that he will be fielding a team that is full of European experience for the upcoming friendly against Malawi. He has said that he has been doing a lot of research over the Zimbabwe players playing in European countries. He has been consistently monitoring them, and he intends to use them in the upcoming friendly matches. The previous Zimbabwe manager was criticised for not utilising the players playing abroad. Pagels intends to correct it under his regime and hope that the form of the national team improves.

Zimbabwe come into the encounter against Egypt in March having won just two of the last six encounters. As a result, that is a lot of pressure on the manager to produce the results. Pagels has said that he will not be including every player who is playing abroad, but only those who are capable of representing the national team. The African nations have been able to achieve a lot international football over the last decade due to the presence of several European-based players in the squad. Ivory Coast, Ghana, and Cameroon have been great examples of national teams being able to take advantage of the presence of popular African’s in major leagues.

“My philosophy needs European-based players as the backbone of the team. I was in Germany recently where I contacted my friends all over Europe who gave me a lot of information on all Zimbabweans playing in Europe. I also researched on the internet, so let me proudly say that I am now well-informed. At the moment I am not at liberty to name the players, but my ideal team is already there. The challenge here is to build a new team. We must have a good mix of European-based with the best playing locally, ” said Pagels.