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.