D-Day for Loga

Sport
Zimbabwe anchor Group G standings with just one point from the first two games and were on the receiving end the last time out, away to minnows Ethiopia.

BY MUNYARADZI MADZOKERE

The Zifa executive meeting is set to meet in Harare today to deliberate on the fate of under fire Warriors coach Zdravko Logarusic and his technical team following a dismal start to the 2022 Qatar World Cup qualifying campaign.

Zimbabwe anchor Group G standings with just one point from the first two games and were on the receiving end the last time out, away to minnows Ethiopia.

Logarusic has presided over probably the worst run by the Warriors, winning just one in 14 attempts, managing five draws and eight defeats.

However, by some stroke of luck or intricate design, the coach has appeared to somehow avoid the guillotine with reports suggesting that some powerful people in the Zifa executive continue to defend him with their lives.

A member of the Zifa board, Sugar Chagonda who led the national team delegation in Ethiopia last week, made a passionate plea for the association to fire Logarusic.

Confirming the Exco meeting, Zifa communications and competitions manager Xolisani Gwesela said the seating was merely to review the team’s performance.

“I can confirm that the Zifa executive committee will meet today to review the performance of the team in the World Cup qualifiers,” he said.

In order to quell the calls for the Croat’s ouster in the aftermath of the country’s worst Cosafa campaign in recent memory a couple of months back, Zifa allowed the manager to go back to his country for a while.

They also added the inexperienced Benjani Mwaruwari to the technical team to assist the strikers, but his impact was none existent as the team drew blanks in the two World Cup qualifiers.

Sources close to the goings-on revealed Zifa was dragging its feet in terminating Loga’s contract prematurely as they fear sanctions from Fifa.

Loga has a two-year contract reportedly worth US$7 000 a month, which ends in February 2022.

But amid the crisis, Logarusic appears confident that he will remain the coach by the time of the next double-header World Cup qualifiers against Ghana next month.

“Anyway this is what is there, we have to focus for the next game since only two games have been played,” the Croat said after the 1-0 defeat in Ethiopia.

“Now we have to do it the hardest way, we have two games against Ghana [and] it means we have to go and pick three points there and even three points here and then we have to wait for the last two games.”

Zimbabwe’s quest for a maiden World Cup qualification is seemingly all, but over with the team having garnered one point in two matches and is faced with an impossible task of winning all the remaining matches.

It remains to be seen, who will replace Loga should Zifa opt to end the marriage or what the reason for keeping the worst coach to take charge of the Warriors would be.

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