Zimbabwe’s national team manager Ian Gorowa will have the opportunity to integrate home and foreign-based players when his team take on Malawi in a friendly match. This will be a great opportunity to improve the team ahead of the 2015 African nations cup qualifiers. Zimbabwe have been struggling to deal with politics within the country and it has taken its toll on the national team as well. Even though they suffered only two defeats after the recent African nations cup Championship, many reckon that Africa still has a long way to go before it sees the best out of Zimbabwe.
Gorowa has named a team that will see six foreign players be part of the squad. Apart from the friendly against South Africa, which is Zimbabwe lost 2-1, Gorowa has not had the opportunity to field foreign players on a regular basis. These foreign based players provide a lot of quality to the team given that they are regularly competing against some of the best in the world. Gorowa has urged the best players from Zimbabwe to grab the opportunity to play abroad especially in Europe. Zifa communications manager, Xolisani Gwesela, says that the nation will be looking to use this friendly to improve ahead of the 2015 African nations cup qualifiers.
“We usually place lot of importance in such matches for obvious reasons. The first is that the coach has a number of players he wants to look at and these players need to be exposed at the international stage. Secondly we want our national team to be a major force to reckon with in the SADC region and in the whole of Africa. So, funds permitting and depending on the logistics, we will take every opportunity to play these friendly internationals,” said Gwesela.
Zimbabwe later managed a 4-1 win over Malawi in the friendly match.