The Sunday News
Mehluli Sibanda, Senior Sports Reporter
ZIMBABWE Warriors acting coach, Rahman Gumbo has predicted a hard battle when they take on Zambia in the Cosafa Cup semifinals at Moses Mabhida Stadium in Durban, South Africa on Wednesday.
The Warriors clash with Chipolopolo in last four of the Southern African competition a match Zimbabwe have to win to stand a chance of winning a third Cosafa title in a row and win the tournament a record seventh time. Gumbo, standing in for head coach Sunday Chidzambwa who has had to return home following the death of his father said both teams do not want to come out second best against each other.
“Zambia have always been our rivals in the southern region, they are our main opponents especially looking at the situation, we’ve been rivals for a long time with Zambia. I think it’s going to be a tough game looking at the situation that they don’t want to lose against us and we don’t want to lose against Zambia, we are going to take this game seriously,’’ Gumbo said.
On star player Khama Billiat, Gumbo indicated that the diminutive forward, scorer of the second goal in Zimbabwe 2-0 quarterfinal triumph over Comoros on Saturday will be fine and should be available for the semifinal showdown against Zambia.
Wednesday’s clash between Zimbabwe and Zambia is a repeat of the 2017 and 2018 Cosafa Cup finals which the Warriors won 3-1 and 4-2 respectively in South Africa. Zimbabwe have a better record in the head to head between the two teams as they have won four of the eight matches while Zambia have only tasted victory twice with two draws between the giants of Southern Africa football.
While Zimbabwe had easy passage into the semifinals with a 2-0 victory over Comoros, Zambia had to work hard to sail through 4-2 on penalties over Malawi after their match had concluded 2-2 in 90 minutes.
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