Zimbabwe’s Warriors will be chasing football history on two fronts as they begin their 2018 Cosafa Cup campaign against Botswana in the 45 500-seater Peter Mokaba Stadium in Polokwane, South Africa, this afternoon.
BY MICHAEL KARIATI/MUNYARADZI MADZOKERE
The Warriors will be looking to stretch thier Cosafa record to six titles by the end of the competition while coach Sunday Chidzambwa is also staring history in his face as he guns for a record four successes in the regional tournament.
Chidzambwa won it in 2003, added another in 2009 before completing his hat-trick of titles last year.
The only other coach who has won the Cosafa Cup more than once is South Africa’s Shakes Mashaba, who won it in 2002 and 2016.
Chidzambwa is also not taking chances to create a huge gap between himself and the other coaches.
Although missing the injured Marvelous Nakamba, Knowledge Musona, Costa Nhamoinesu and the England-based quartet of Tendayi Darikwa, Adam Chicksen, Macauley Bonne and Andy Rinomhota and Germany-based Kelvin Lunga, who all failed to get their travel documents in time, Chidzambwa has assembled the best football talent Zimbabwe has to offer at the moment.
Yet, he is fretting over the ones that are not available.
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“I think as a coach one will always want more quality players in the team. We are missing a number of players because of documents or something, but we would have loved to have all the players we had selected for the tourney,” Chidzambwa said.
“We are looking beyond Cosafa, we want to prepare for the Africa Cup of Nations [Afcon] qualifiers and I think this is the best time to do so and we were not so lucky with documentation, so we just have to do with what we have.”
But a team that has players such as Khama Billiart, Ovidy Karuru, Tino Kadewere, Evans Rusike, Alec Mudimu, Abbas Amidu, Marshall Munetsi, Talent Chawapihwa and George Chigova can compete against the best Africa has to offer.
Those who know Chidzambwa better predict he will not fail in his dream of a fourth Cosafa Castle Cup title and a sixth regional championship for Zimbabwe.
South African top-flight side Supersport United coach Kaitano Tembo, a former Dynamos defender himself, has high regard for Chidzambwa.
“He is a great coach, and a great motivator. He always succeeds in whatever he does, and chances are that he will do it again,” said Tembo, who was part of Chidzambwa’s 2004 Afcon squad.
Chidzambwa knows it will not be easy.
“Definitely we have the pressure, but pressure will always be there in football so we are going to fight hard for us to keep our trophy and see what will happen,” he said.
“The coming-in of new players is making the team look much better. Personally, I feel we have a much stronger team than we had last year in the Cosafa Cup.”
Interestingly, Chidzambwa’s younger brother Misheck was the first to win the Cosafa Cup with the Warriors in 2000.
In fact, another Cosafa Cup triumph this year would mean another feather in the cap of Chidzambwa’s successful coaching career.
In 1998 he led Dynamos to the final of the CAF Champions League before losing out 4-2 to Asec Mimosas of the Ivory Coast albeit in controversial circumstances.
The closest any other Zimbabwean team has come to achieving that feat was Dynamos again in 2008 when DeMbare reached the semi-finals of Africa’s biggest club competition with Chidzambwa once again at the helm as technical adviser to David Mandigora.
Widely regarded as the most successful coach in Zimbabwean football history, Chidzambwa led the Warriors to their first ever qualification to the Afcon finals when he took the Zimbabwe team to the 2004 finals in Tunisia.
Not forgetting the fact that he was the man who also led Zimbabwe to the finals of the 2009 Africa Nations Championships (Chan) where the Warriors drew all their three matches against Ghana, Congo DR and Libya.
Although he is using the Cosafa Cup to build his team for the 2019 Afcon qualifiers against Congo DR, Congo Brazzaville and Liberia, the focus of the Zimbabwe football-following public right now is winning the Cosafa Cup.
For the record, Zambia and South Africa are tied on four Cosafa Cup titles each while Angola are on three championships.
Only time will tell whether Chidzambwa and Zimbabwe are going to further etch their names deep into Cosafa football folklore.
