<\/p>\n\n\n\n
16 November 2021<\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Jeremiah Harrison<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Sports Reporter<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Warriors interim coach, Norman Mapeza’s future with the national team hangs in the balance after Sunday’s disappointing one all draw against Ethiopia in a World Cup qualifier.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In an interview with the press on Saturday Mapeza said he had been building for the future.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Mapeza took over from Croatian Zdravko Logarusic who failed to produce any good results for the national team during his stint as the Zimbabwe National soccer team.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Croatian coach, nicknamed Loga had a bunch of loses, after he was given enough time to time take the Warriors to dizzy heights.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Loga was given a chance at the African National Championship (CHAN) Tournament in Cameroon but he could not cope up with the heat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Warriors came back home empty handed as they lost all their matches in group A.<\/p>\n\n\n\n They lost to the host nation Cameroon by a goal to nil in an opening match, they went on to play their second match against Burkina Faso and they lost by a 3-1 margin before losing again to Mali by 2-0.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Zimbabwe Football Association (ZIFA) Board was patient enough, they gave Loga more time but he failed to deliver.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Under the regime of Loga the Warriors participated in the COSAFA tournament, and lost to Senegal by 2-1, the Zimbabwean Warriors lost to the Brave Warriors of Namibia by 2-0.<\/p>\n\n\n\n They got two points from the tournament when they drew against Malawi by 2-2 before another stalemate against Mozambique.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Again the Warriors had no win from the COSAFA tournament.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Mapeza was given a short-term contract to clean up the mess left by Loga.<\/p>\n\n\n\n From the four matches since he took over he managed to get one point from a possible twelve scoring two goals and conceding six goals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Mapeza took over and he lost 3-1 to the Black Stars of Ghana away from home, the Warriors lost against Ghana again at home by a goal to nil securing zero points from the back to back fixture against the Black Stars.<\/p>\n\n\n\n They went on to play against South Africa last week and lost by a goal to nil worsening the situation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Mapeza hoped to win against Ethiopia at home but his dream never came to reality as the game ended in a stalemate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Warriors finished the 2022 campaign with no win.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In yesterday’s post-match press conference, Mapeza refused to talk about his future as the Warriors coach in the next AFCON.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “It\u2019s unfortunate my contract runs out after these four games. I can\u2019t talk of any preparations because I don\u2019t know where I would be tomorrow so I can\u2019t be talking about preparations for now,\u201d Mapeza said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n His mantra was that he was building a team for the Africa Cup of Nations (Afcon) finals set for Cameroon in January.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Zimbabwe is placed in Group B alongside Senegal,Guinea and Malawi.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Zimbabwe have qualified for the third time in a row to the AFCON finals, under Calisto Pasuwa and Sunday Mhofu Chidzambga but all these coaches have failed to reach the round of 16 for the AFCON Tournament.<\/p>\n\n\n\n There has been some improvement in the manner the team is playing since he took over, Mapeza reckons<\/p>\n\n\n\n In other group G World Cup Qualifiers match played, Ghana beat South Africa by a goal to nil courtesy of Andre Ayew from the penaltly spot.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Ghana have secured a place in the play-offs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n ZimGBC News<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" 16 November 2021 Jeremiah Harrison Sports Reporter Warriors interim coach, Norman Mapeza’s future with the national team hangs in the balance after Sunday’s disappointing one all draw against Ethiopia in… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-939","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/zimgbcnews.co.zw\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/939","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/zimgbcnews.co.zw\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/zimgbcnews.co.zw\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/zimgbcnews.co.zw\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/zimgbcnews.co.zw\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=939"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/zimgbcnews.co.zw\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/939\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":940,"href":"http:\/\/zimgbcnews.co.zw\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/939\/revisions\/940"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/zimgbcnews.co.zw\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=939"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/zimgbcnews.co.zw\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=939"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/zimgbcnews.co.zw\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=939"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}