Pasuwa Upset About Lack Of Friendlies

National football coach, Callisto Pasuwa has expressed his frustration with the lack of friendlies that the Warriors get to play and that this could be hampering their progression.

However, just yesterday it was revealed that the Warriors were bumped up two spots on the the official FIFA rankings from number 110 to number 108.

The Warriors are currently at a training camp, preparing for the Chan tournament. They leave on Saturday to Rwanda where they will come face-to-face with Mali, Zambia and Uganda as part of their Group D matches.

The Warriors had previously lined up potential friendly matches against the likes of Mozambique as well as Ethiopia, but it never came to fruition. This has impacted the players by not being exposed to many international matches.

However, speaking to reporters after the Warriors’ training session yesterday, Pasuwa said that he is confident that his team will do well at Chan, despite their lack of friendlies:

“…[I think] so far so good. We have been having (injury) problems with some of the boys but I think they have recovered well…With [routine] training you might be satisfied but you need to train with these other teams and see how these youngsters perform,” he said.

He further said that he wanted to test his team on an international level, but that perhaps they will be able to play a friendly against Zambia:

“…We had wanted to test these boys prior to the tournament; remember some of them were playing in the Under-23 and I would have wanted to watch them in a normal game situation…Maybe our friendly match will be against Zambia and I hope the boys will adjust. I heard Zambia is playing some friendlies,” he was quoted as saying.

The Chan tournament in Rwanda will run from January 16 to February 7.