Khama apologises for Zimbabwe’s poor show at #AFCON2017

By Mugove Chigada in LIBREVILLE, Gabon

Warriors star Khama Billiat says they let the nation down at the 2017 AFCON finals. Zimbabwe were outclassed 2-4 by Tunisia in the last Group B match to bow out of the tournament with just a point, leaving Senegal and Tunisia to progress.

“It is very disappointing and we need to be very honest with ourselves that we have let the nation down,” said Khama.

“But it is part of football, we win some and lose some. We need to be honest with ourselves, go back and take the positives and stay focused at our clubs so that we can be called again.”

The Mamelodi Sundowns star said they made life difficult for themselves by allowing the opponents to score early goals.

“That has been the biggest problem for us through out the tournament. We conceded goals in the first 15 minutes. We started playing our normal game after that, but playing to try and come back into the game is always very difficult.

“It requires double the effort. It is one of those things we recognised contributed to us being out of the tournament,” he said.

He said the Warriors could still make a better impression in the future.

“Now we need to be focused on the future because it takes a lot more than just speaking about it. We need to improve individually,” he said.

“I believe that if we had won that game against Algeria, we could have given ourselves confidence and today we could have been talking a different story. But it is all in the past now and we have to go back and plan for the future. If I was to play at the tournament again, I would like us to win the first game and not be worried going into the next game.

“We need to be back again here at AFCON and we need to come back stronger.” The Herald