Is history a living tissue in Zimbabwe vs Cameroon CHAN match?

By Tendai Chisiri

Zimbabwe’s Warriors takes on the hosts Cameroon’s Indomitable Lions in the seventh Total African Nations Championship opening match where the former may upset the latter if they do not want a repeat of not winning opening matches.

The Warriors of Zimbabwe are making their fifth CHAN appearance and have not won any of their opening matches of the CHAN finals.

Warriors will looking to begin their Group A campaign with a win at the Yaounde Omnisport Stadiumon Saturday as they may want to change their history of not winning their opening matches at the CHAN finals.

In the previous opening matches at CHAN finals, Zimbabwe drew with Ghana 2-2 in 2009, lost 0-2to Niger in 2011, drew 0-0 with Morocco in 2014 and was beaten 0-1 by Zambia in 2016.

Cameroon have never made it past the quarter-final, and crashed out in the group stages in 2011 and 2016, but head coach Martin Ndtoungou Mpile and his team have been tasked to go a step further and improve in this year’s edition.

The Lions’ current form is, however, worrying for the fans, who watched their nation fall to a disappointing draw against Uganda, before suffering defeats to Niger and Zambia in last week’s pre-CHAN invitational competition.

Zimbabwe sealed their CHAN 2020 spot after impressive wins against Mauritius and Lesotho, scoring 10 goals and conceding two in four qualifying games.

The Zimbabwe Football Association appointed 54-year-old Croatian Zdravko Logarusic as head coach of all senior national teams following his two-year stint with Sudan.

Overally, since 1980 Cameron has won 6 matches out of the 10 matches played against Zimbabwe. Zimbabwe won 3 matches with the other match ending in a draw. The last match between the two was in 2017 and the friendly match which ended in a draw.

Cameroon has 4 wins in FIFA World Cup matches whilst Zimbabwe has two wins against each other .Zimbabwe has one win in the African Cup of Nations and Cameroon has 2 wins against each other .

Zimbabwe probable starting lineup:
Chadya; Amini, Chamboko, Nekati, Mbeba; Nyahwa, Hachiro, Makamba, Nadolo; Chirinda, Matare

Cameroon probable starting lineup:
Dande; Ngombe, Banga, Andoulo, Ngombe; Oukine, N’Djeng, Atangana; Badoudana; Zoua, Meyong