Courtesy: All Africa


Zimbabwe: Futsal Waits for Coach

29 March 2012

The Zimbabwe Futsal league are eagerly waiting for the appointment of the national five aside football team coach to lead the team in the World Cup qualifiers next weekend.

Zimbabwe were drawn against Sudan in the first round of the African qualifiers for the Futsal World Cup to be hosted by Thailand in November this year and have been preparing in two parallel camps in Harare and Bulawayo.

Zimbabwe Futsal technical director Frank Farakezi said the players were training under interim coaches in both provinces and a substantive technical team is expected to be announced tomorrow after the Zifa board meeting.

"We need to get the team ready by the start of next week," said Farakezi.

"The league has recommended names of the people who have been working with the players in the provinces for the national team coaching post.

"But the appointment will only be done by the board," said Farakezi.

Former Black Rhinos midfielder Max Ruza and Chance Moyo, who have been working with the group in Bulawayo, are among the candidates for the coaching job while Enock Mutume's name could also be in the hat as he has been doing the selection in Harare with Farakezi.

Zimbabwe will start at home early next month over the Easter weekend between 6-8 April and then travel to Sudan for the return leg after two weeks.

There will be two more qualifying rounds should they prevail, Zimbabwe will meet neighbours South Africa in May with the third and final round of qualifiers taking place in June.

Farakezi said preparations have been going on smoothly and are expecting 15 players each from the two provinces for the final phase of their build-up.

"We couldn't start earlier as we would have wanted because the facilities at Zifa Village were occupied by the national women's soccer team.

"They checked out yesterday and now we are expecting the guys from Bulawayo to arrive this afternoon and then we move in to continue with our preparations.

"We need to look at all the players because we had two provincial camps running in parallel for the past few weeks and by Sunday we should have the final squad of 18," said Farakezi.

Five-Aside reached its peak in Zimbabwe in the 1990s but has continued to suffer in the shadows of the Premier Soccer League.

Zimbabwe last took part in international competitions in 1998 when they narrowly missed a World Cup slot after coming third in the qualifiers held in Egypt, with only two teams from the region progressing to the finals of the tournament.




Posted by Luca Ranocchiari --> luca.ranocchiari@futsalplanet.com