By Sports writer
ZIMBABWE interim national team coach Jairos Tapera blamed his side’s poor defensive show after a horrible evening as the Warriors lost 3-1 to South Africa at the Free State stadium in Bloemfontein, South Africa in a FIFA 2026 World cup qualifier match on Tuesday.
Tapera made six changes to the team that lost 2-0 to Lesotho bringing in Tinashe Garanga’nga and Godknows Murwira in defence together with Geoffrey Chitsumba in goals.
Midfielder Richard Hachiro got the nod to start in the centre of the park, so did Walter Musona and Douglas Mapfumo upfront.
But the changes did not count for much as the warriors went behind after 30 seconds following a mistake by Garanga’nga to gift Iqraam Rayners who opened the scoring for Bafana Bafana.
Wolverhampton Wanderers forward Tawanda Chirewa drew the warriors level two minutes into the match.
However, South Africa pinned Zimbabwe in the second half to score twice courtesy of substitute Tapelo Morena who scored a brace albeit with a bit of assistance from goalkeeper Chitsumba who blundered for the second goal.
And Tapera believes the mistakes by his defensive players were the major difference between the two sides.
“We are making our lives difficult in terms of defending, you can imagine in the first minute, through a central defender he makes a mistake and we concede,” he said after the match.
“Immediately after we equalise and stabilize things… And again a lapse of concentration, untidy in the box and they punish us, third goal through the middle and we are punished again.”
Zimbabwe remain bottom of Group C with a meagre two points with the next round of matches slated for early next year. Bafana Bafana are second on the standings behind Rwanda with both teams in seven points.
Tapera however, feels there is something to work on, on the current squad, if ZIFA can be organized.
“The fluidity i think in terms of play we are playing well, we need to go back and organise ourselves and make sure we improve going forward,” he added.
