By Tendai Chisiri
Warriors’ coach Zdravko Logarusic will assemble his troops for the forthcoming Qatar 2022 World cup qualifiers between South Africa, Ethiopia and Ghana respectively without the local based players due to the Covid-19 induced lock downs which has stifled the local league.
The local premier league has been forced to remain closed down when it was about to commence for its 2020 season in March 2020.
There had been hullabaloo in the past over the selection of senior men football squad with some quarters of the fans professing that there is bias towards the foreign based players as they can manage to give gifts to the Zimbabwe Football Association (ZIFA), officials to be included in the national duty.
“Fans are just clamoring for the involvement of the British Brigade whilst they may not be of value to the senior men’s team”, said a former top flight player in Glen- Norah. This was before the pandemic when the Warriors squad was to be announced for the Afcon qualifiers.
The British Brigade are Zimbabweans born in United Kingdom or migrated there at a tender age such that they never played competitive soccer locally.
The issue usually caused headaches to the national coach as his selection was thought to be shoddy because of the British Brigade or other foreign based players.
“Some of the players had the privilege abroad but when compared to the local talent, they are no match but because of where they are even if they are not performing they get called for national duty”, added the former player on condition of anonymity.
This time around, Loga will not have a tiresome job in choosing his team with the essence of pleasing the fans by choosing their local stars.Covid-19 pandemic has caused the noise about forgoing local players to be quite as the local league is at stand still. It is now for the foreign based players to prove their mettle as the local players will have to run for their money in future to be included in the national team at such a stratospheric stage of the nation’s football.
The all foreign based Warriors squad is a step change in the national team and augments stiff competition for players to get called for national duty. There is a crescendo in the number of players plying abroad turning up in the Warriors squad of late. The Dream Team which made waves under Fabisch had only Peter Ndlovu, Adam Ndlovu and Moses Chunga plying their trade overseas with the rest of the squad playing locally at first.
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