Zimbabwe Football

FIFA has highly praised the fantastic work of Ian Gorowa, the Coach of Warriors, during the Final of African National Championship. Overtaking Klaus Dieter Pagel, Gorowa, directed the Zimbabwe National Football Team, the Warriors to the semi final rounds of CHAN. During the 3rd match off, the warriors lost to the Nigerians while the team made into the top hundred football playing counties according to FIFA special ratings. This progress under the new coach Gorowa was acknowledged yesterday by FIFA as they specifically devoted a part of fifa.com to the National Football Team of Zimbabwe.

Ian Gorowa was asked to take up the task of coaching the Warriors by the Zimbabwe Football Association; post Klaus Dieter Pagel quit his post last summer. Since then there has been no looking back on the part of the forty two year old ex- international football player, who has led the National Zimbabwe Football team to victory time and again.

FIFA noted that the warriors have been gradually climbing the ratings of the FIFA Coca Cola World Football Ranking by 5 spots, now making them 27th best in Africa and 100th best in world. This has been the team’s best performance since Nov 2012.

Quite a number of reputed football clubs of South Africa noted the progress of the Warriors during the CHAN finals, said FIFA. Kuda Mahachi is expected to play with Mamelodi Sundowns while How Mine’s Simba Sithole has been linked up with Ajax Cape Town. As SuperSport is eyeing George Chigova, the ace Goalkeeper, Patson Jaure, the team’s skipper is being tracked by Orlando Pirates.

The opening matches against Uganda and Morocco were drawn by the Warriors while they outdid Burkina Faso hence proceeding into the quarter finale.  Gorowa showcased his happiness on the team’s performance but assured a lot is yet more to come.

Zimbabwe are in danger of being eliminated from the African nations cup championship at a very early stage should they lose to Mali in the next group match. Zimbabwe have taken just two points from the matches against Uganda and Burkina Faso. This is the tournament held in Africa in order to give the locally placed players an opportunity to win trophies. Ian Gorowa, who has previously coached the likes of Ajax Cape Town, says that he is worried about the poor attacking display shown by his team in this tournament.

Scoring goals has been a major problem for the team, although their form has been slowly improving in the last few months. Even though they dominated the last two matches, they have failed to score. Ahead of the match with Morocco, Gorowa said that this will be a must win game for the Zimbabwe national team if they are to progress to the latter stages of the competition. He said that the 0-0 draw with Uganda was very disappointing, but he is hoping that his attack finds form at just the right stage in the tournament.

Zimbabwe have been looking good in recent months as they have not suffered a defeat since the 2-0 loss to Zambia back in July of last year.

“I have to put it lightly how I am feeling about it [the 0-0 loss to Uganda]. It was a must-win game, we also created chances, if we didn’t then I would be worried. We had to win though, and now fate is not in our hands because you never know. We have to compete and they have to score goals, we haven’t scored any in this tournament, so it’s a bit of a worry. We wanted to correct the mistakes we had against Morocco,” Gorowa said.

Zimbabwe head coach Ian Gorowa has said that the state of the artificial pitch at the Rufaro Stadium could cause serious injuries to his players and he has requested to the football Federation that the national team matches should be played at the Barbourfields Stadium. Gorowa has overseen three matches for the Zimbabwe national team. They have played against the likes of Mauritius, Mozambique, and Zambia in the three matches since he has taken over. However, all the matches have finished in a draw, which has increased the pressure on the manager.

Gorowa has now stated that he does not want the 2015 Afcon qualifying matches to take place at the Rufaro Stadium, but instead at the Barbourfields Stadium. He has explained in an interview that the artificial pitch used at the former is capable of causing players injury. He is also lost at the fact that Zimbabwe continue to play their matches at Harare despite the fact that they have several good stadiums across the country. He has said that the football Federation should consider using other cities as host for the national team matches.

“The state of Rufaro is not friendly to players, but rather an injury risk. I wonder why we are always stuck in Harare when we have other stadiums around the country. I would really love that we play our Afcon qualifying matches at Barbourfields and I have already made that request. We would have easily played at the National Sports Stadium, but the problem is we have not been getting good results there. This means that we should not leave out other cities in the hosting of national team games,” Gorowa said.

A number of teams have declined the opportunity to play at the Rufaro Stadium in recent times citing the problems with the pitch.