The Sunday News
Ngqwele Dube, Sports Correspondent
VISITING Horoya Athletic Club coach, Patrice Neveu, has expressed surprise at the quality of football infrastructure in Zimbabwe.
The Guinean club has been in the country for the past week and took on Zimbabwean champs, FC Platinum yesterday in a Caf Champions League Group B match at Barbourfields Stadium.
Horoya arrived last Saturday, a week before the match as they sought to acclimatise with the local weather conditions and stayed in Harare for three days before coming to Bulawayo on Wednesday.
The team had a chance to train in both Harare and Bulawayo getting the opportunity to see football stadiums in the two cities.
In Harare they were training at National Sports Stadium while in Bulawayo they had sessions at Luveve Stadium on Wednesday and Thursday before getting a feel of the match venue on Friday.
Neveu said good infrastructure was one of the prerequisite of success in the game and felt Zimbabwe should have been far ahead in terms of success on the field.
“After seeing the pitches here, I was wondering to myself why Zimbabwe’s national team has not achieved a lot on the field of play. I think you should be well ahead and won some trophies on the continent. The turf for the stadiums we have been to is very good and allows players to express themselves well and enables you to have a flowing game,” said the Frenchman.
Neveu said he once watched national team when they participated in the 2014 Chan finals that were held in South Africa and Zimbabwe’s play was impressive. The national team managed to reach the semifinals of the competition where they lost to Libya 5-4 on penalties.
Zimbabwe have had near misses on the continental turf and has only qualified thrice for the Africa Cup of Nations, Africa top competition and has never progressed beyond group stages, the country is yet to qualify for the World Cup with only the Mighty Warriors making it to the international stage when they made it to the 2016 Rio Olympics.
The senior national men’s team holds the record for the most wins in the Cosafa Cup having won it six times but this is a regional tournament that only involves countries from southern Africa although there are guests nations that are at times invited to take part from other regions.
Horoya managing director, Amadou Bangoura, revealed they had been tasked with reaching the semifinals of this year’s Caf Champions League competition after making it to the quarterfinals last year.
