FC Platinum winger Ali Sadiki has been rewarded for his scintillating form, after being included in the Warriors squad to play Malawi in an international friendly match in Blantyre on March 25.
BY MICHAEL MADYIRA
The match would be played at Chichiri Stadium with coach Klaus-Dieter Pagels using it to craft the squad for the returning Cosafa Cup. However, Pagels will not be travelling with the team and will be in South Africa on private business.
He leaves for South Africa tomorrow and would only be back in Zimbabwe on the day of the match.
The team leaves the country by road on Thursday next week without camping and will only have one training session the following day at the match venue soon after their arrival in Blantyre.
“I had already scheduled my private business way before the Malawi match was planned, so I cannot cancel my trip to South Africa,” said Pagels.
“I know [Lloyd] Mutasa will stand-in well for me and do well. I have so much trust in him together with Peter [Ndlovu]. After the match, that is when we will come up with the final squad for the Cosafa Castle Cup.”
Mutasa said he is relishing the challenge of heading the Warriors technical team for the first time.
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“It is quite a good challenge which I am looking forward to. It gives me an opportunity to gauge if I have learnt something from the head coach,” said Mutasa.
“I know I will be getting much support from Peter and Nkululeko Dhlamini. We want to go to Malawi and see if we are able to play the kind of football we would want and see if the players are responding well to our methods,” he said.
Zimbabwe have ironically been paired with Malawi in the quarter finals of the Cosafa Cup which runs from July 6-20 in Zambia. The two neighbours meet in the regional competition on July 13 in Lusaka.
