Let's not let Marinica down

By Michael Kariati | 1h ago

Marinica was lucky enough to have a huge preliminary pool of players which gives him the chance to have a look — in person — at who deserves to make the journey to Morocco rather than to rely on second or third parties.

Our provisional team for Afcon 2025 is out and whoever we wanted to be in the squad is there and whoever is not in the set up might be due to injury or other reasons.

It is a fact that coach Marian Marinica did not pick all the 55 players, but whoever helped him do it did manged to cast the net wide and included whoever has shown potential to fit in the Warriors set up.

What he surely got — from whoever — was a collection of the best players available for Zimbabwe right now and what is now left is for him to be spot-on in picking his final 23-member squad.

Interestingly, we came to know during the announcement that Brendon Galloway's other name is Zibusiso and that Andy Rinomhota is also called Farai, and that Andrew Mbeba's middle name is Kabila unless there was a mistake somewhere

Lucky enough for Marinica, the domestic season is over, and the coach has all the time in the world to call into camp all the locally based players for assessment without worrying much about match results.

This is where the finances promised by the government for Afcon preparations come into play because there are no other preparations bigger than gathering the players in the first place.

The government should release the money right now so that there is evidence of what it is being used for because doing that later invites wolves who will help themselves to the chunk of it and leave little for the players.

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Surely, we do not want a repeat of the events of the last time around when there was finger pointing, accusations, and counter accusations, as to what happened to the money provided by the government for Afcon and up to now nobody knows what happened to it.

We gave Marinica the job of Warriors coach and targets for Afcon 2025 and we need to give him all the support so that he won't have any excuses in case he fails to meet our targets.

So far, Marinica has shown strong commitment to the Zimbabwean cause and there is something in him that is telling us that he could be the man we have been waiting for years.

This is our team and we should not let Marinica down because so far he has demonstrated a deep love for the Warriors and his no - nonsense attitude and training methods are what was missing in the Warriors camp.

From the outset, the Romanian coach seems to have a sense of direction as to what he wants to achieve and it is now up to all of us to share in his vision of a successful Warriors.

We surely have a strong team which if well prepared can beat the best Africa has to offer. After all, Angola, Egypt, and South Africa, are not men from Mars or another planet and can be beaten.

A win over Angola and a draw with South Africa or vice-versa could see us in the knockout stages for the first time since 1980 and it is mission possible.

Remember, we drew with South Africa in a World Cup qualifier under Michael Nees and what can stop us from beating them with a seemingly better organised coach.

We could even be lucky to qualify with three points — among the best third placed teams - but that should not be the route we want, but automatic qualification.

Even, though, we only beat one team — Namibia — to qualify, the fact remains that we are there to compete among the other 23 top African football teams when other Nations will be at home watching Afcon 2025 on television.

The Warriors are our team and we don't have to look down upon them but to have belief and faith in what they can do and together we will conquer

Surely, we might not like Marinica and have doubts over our Warriors but let us give them the benefit of the doubt at Afcon 2025.

We might be in for a surprise.

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