Zimbabwe national football team caretaker coach Jairos Tapera is not giving up yet on his team’s chances of qualifying for the 2026 FIFA World Cup despite being at the bottom of Group C after four matches played.
Tapera was Speaking after the 3-1 loss to Bafana Bafana at the Free State stadium in Bloemfontein last night. The Warriors lost back-to-back matches in this international week and are only on two points after four matches. But Tapera says it’s still too early.
”Probably there’s a team which is on seven points and they were probably on the bottom in the last two games, and they only won two games and now the rest is history. Let’s just take this as a starting point, where if we can go and organise ourselves for the next games, you’ll never know,” said Tapera.
Despite the 2-0 loss to Lesotho at Orlando Stadium last Friday, the Zimbabwean team showed significant improvement in their game against Bafana Bafana.
They demonstrated their fighting spirit by quickly equalizing through Tawanda Chirewa.
Tapera, pleased with the team’s response, is hopeful for their future performances.
”I think we studied a lot on how South Africa operates, and we thought if we can have him up there with his movements, he was going to give us a lot of advantage. Yes he was very instrumental but our instruction was that we wanted to attack on the central, but overall I think he had a decent game,” added Tapera.
With the World Cup qualifiers only resuming in March 2025, the next focus is on the 2025 African Cup of Nations (AFCON) qualifiers, which will start in September this year. Tapera feels that a lot of good work has been done in this camp.
Wolverhampton Wanderers attacker Tawanda Chirewa not only scored his first goal in only two matches at the international level for Zimbabwe but had a very good showing.
Tapera says Zimbabwean football has got a gem in Chirewa.
“He (Tawanda Chirewa) is excellent, he is a clever young boy. I think we have a gem in Zimbabwe.”
“Chirewa was excellent. We had instructed him to play in-between the defensive midfield and the defence of South Africa and he did so well.
“(It’s) his second international game and he gets a goal. That was excellent. He is a clever young man and I think going forward, we have a gem in him.
“We have a few young players coming in trying to gel with the senior players. I think it is just a matter of time. We are going to come right. Individually, we had a lot of positives which I think we can build on going forward,” Tapera said.