Sports / Soccer
Botswana beat Warriors in an international friendly
30 Sep 2014 at 18:47hrs | Views
Botswana 1 - 0 Zimbabwe
A new look Zimbabwe Warriors squad, consisting of U-23 players, lost 1-nil to Botswana in an international friendly match played at the National Stadium in Gaborone.
Led by ZPC Kariba mentor, Saul Chaminuka, Zimbabwe's young boys appeared to be on course to register a shock draw away from home against a full strength Zebras team but paid dearly for their inexperience.
How Mine goalkeeper, Donovan Benard had shone for Zimbabwe for most of the match, making crucial saves but it was his mistake that turned out to be the Warriors' downfall.
With the zebras having been shut from every angle and running out of ideas, Benard failed to control a harmless back pass and conceded a corner kick.
Botswana scored direct from that corner kick taken by Moyana and again the badly positioned Benard failed to deal with the high ball.
Trailing by a goal, Zimbabwe's young charges tried hard to come back into the match with Praise Tonha and Ronald Pfumbidzai testing the Zebras goalkeeper but the hosts held on to claim a narrow win.
As the clock wound down to the 90th minute mark, Zimbabwe camped in the Botswana half but the equaliser proved elusive.
With promising players such as Walter Musona, Wisdom Mutasa, Blessing Moyo and Kelvin Moyo, Chaminuka left the stadium with hope that the future might be bright after-all, following the infamous so called dissolution of the national team by ZIFA.
Zimbabwe's next assignment will come in November with a tie against Morocco.
Zimbabwe is using U-23 players to build a team that will participate in the 2015 All Africa Games, the 2016 Rio Olympic games, as well as the 2017 AFCON qualifiers.
A new look Zimbabwe Warriors squad, consisting of U-23 players, lost 1-nil to Botswana in an international friendly match played at the National Stadium in Gaborone.
Led by ZPC Kariba mentor, Saul Chaminuka, Zimbabwe's young boys appeared to be on course to register a shock draw away from home against a full strength Zebras team but paid dearly for their inexperience.
How Mine goalkeeper, Donovan Benard had shone for Zimbabwe for most of the match, making crucial saves but it was his mistake that turned out to be the Warriors' downfall.
With the zebras having been shut from every angle and running out of ideas, Benard failed to control a harmless back pass and conceded a corner kick.
Botswana scored direct from that corner kick taken by Moyana and again the badly positioned Benard failed to deal with the high ball.
As the clock wound down to the 90th minute mark, Zimbabwe camped in the Botswana half but the equaliser proved elusive.
With promising players such as Walter Musona, Wisdom Mutasa, Blessing Moyo and Kelvin Moyo, Chaminuka left the stadium with hope that the future might be bright after-all, following the infamous so called dissolution of the national team by ZIFA.
Zimbabwe's next assignment will come in November with a tie against Morocco.
Zimbabwe is using U-23 players to build a team that will participate in the 2015 All Africa Games, the 2016 Rio Olympic games, as well as the 2017 AFCON qualifiers.
Source - zbc
