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Zimbabwe’s Warriors on Sunday take their third hunting foray into the football jungle of Africa when they kick-start their 2017 Total-sponsored Africa Cup of Nations expedition in Gabon with a date against Algeria.
Our gold and green-shirted boys are back at the biennial football tournament after a decade-long absence and should be relishing the prospect to progress beyond the first hurdle of the group stages at which they have faltered on each of the previous two occasions they appeared at the tournament in Tunisia 2004 and Egypt 2006.
As the Southern Africa bloc’s only representative, Zimbabwe are in arguably the toughest group at the finals where they will come up against Algeria, Senegal and Tunisia. And the fans in this great nation between the Zambezi and Limpopo Rivers, who adoringly take to our nation’s senior men side as the Warriors, would yearn that their beloved team turns out to be the predator and render their Group B opponents the prey.
Despite the underdogs tag dangling around our necks, we shall seek to apply the law of the jungle to efficacy – where survival of the fittest is the only name of the game in the bruising battles in this African football forest – against our more fancied and star-sprinkled opponents who have Europe-based stellar names in their ranks.
In those brutal contests, the Warriors will be out to loom large and ensnare the Desert Foxes (Algeria), tame the Lions of Teranga (Senegal) and shoot down the Carthage Eagles (Tunisia) that at the end of the first round of the games at the group stage we will be the supreme last men standing and advance to the quarter-finals for the first time in history.
Zimbabwe and Senegal are the only teams to have not won the competition in a group that features two past champions Algeria (1990) and Tunisia (2004) – both as hosts – but football being the unpredictable lot it is, fancying our chances of a sustained fine run at the tournament would certainly not be a crime. In fact, the only time anyone following the action in Gabon may call the Sheriff would be after we steal the show and run away with the gold!
While we might not have enjoyed the ideal kind of preparations that we would have desired, we should make up for that with a spirited fight. After all, we do not call ourselves Warriors for nothing! Those bad beginnings should make for great endings because where there is a will there is a way and what man has done another can always do. This competition is distinguishing us as one of the 16 best football nations on the continent and that we are among them is enough certification that we are as equally good as any other team there and should, therefore, not be dwarfed by the profiles of our opponents and cowed into meek submission. We cannot afford to offer our rivals too much respect because we also made the finals and are our own masters whose destiny only us can shape and decide.
We have already written a beautiful story from the qualifiers and could add another glorious chapter with a fruitfully fantastic run at Afcon that come February 5 we may celebrate a podium finish.
The good news the Warriors will carry while hunting the grounds in Gabon is that continual progress at different stages of the competition will come with rich picking as their earnings will increase per each round and going all the way to the final and lifting the silverware will guarantee our boys a handsome pocketing of a cool US$100 000 pay packet per player. With all set and the tournament’s first games starting tomorrow, the stage is ours to grab; do our thing and show what we can do.
Go, Warriors, Go!
Goals, Warriors, Goals!
Warriors fixtures:
Vs Algeria (January 15, 5pm)
Vs Senegal (January 19, 8pm)
Vs Tunisia (January 23, 8pm)
It’s Game On, Play On!
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