Brito says he is happy with direction his Zimbabwe Warriors are taking
Zimbabwe Warriors coach Baltemar Brito says he is happy with the direction his team are taking despite picking just two points from their opening two matches of the 2026 Fifa World Cup group qualifying campaign.
Zimbabwe drew with hosts Rwanda in their Group C opener at the Huye Stadium on Wednesday last week while a Knowledge Musona free kick helped the Warriors to a 1-1 draw with Nigeria at the same venue on Sunday.
“This is a process, it’s only our second game of the qualifiers,” Brito said.
“This was our first camp with the whole team. We certainly feel the difference from the other two camps. We don’t need only to build chemistry inside the field but off it as well, including the organisation around the team.
“In this camp we feel it’s better than the last ones. Everyone has a positive mindset which brings a positive vibe. There is much respect between the players and the technical staff. There were no bad messages behind each other, and this is beautiful.”
“We were playing against teams that have been playing together for a long time and had dynamics, and for us we are still in the process. We should not relax because we drew against Nigeria. Our mind should be set to improve.
“Sometimes people fall asleep when they get something good, and we shouldn’t do that. This is a good start, and we need to build on from this going forward,” Brito said.
“We had a lot of chances but in football to win, you have to score. We scored one, a beautiful goal by Musona. They (Nigeria) had one or two chances; they didn’t create any dangerous situations in our box. For us, we had good situations at the end, and I feel we should have killed off the game.”
After the the first two rounds of matches Zimbabwe and Nigeria are on two points each
Sunday’s draw left Zimbabwe and Nigeria on two points each after the first two rounds of matches while South Africa lead the standings with three points from their win over Benin in their opener. They play Rwanda today in their second match.
