The Sunday Mail
Tedious Manyepo recently in FRANCISTOWN, Botswana
WHEN the Botswana Football Association (BFA) officials insisted on having the Warriors undergo the Covid-19 PCR at midnight, barely 30 minutes after rapid tests had been conducted, the Zimbabwean delegation probably feared that disaster was on its way.
As the bus carrying the players arrived at the team hotel from Francistown International Airport at around 10.58pm on Wednesday, the BFA officials’ plan was to have the tests carried out as they disembarked.
Yet, the players had spent hours at the airport while having rapid tests for the same coronavirus.
After marathon deliberations, it was eventually agreed that the PCR tests would be conducted on Thursday morning, hours before the crunch 2021 Africa Cup of Nations penultimate round qualifier against the hosts at the Obed Itani Chilume Stadium.
That meant the team would not be allowed to have a feel of the match venue before their results were out.
The PCR test results normally take between three to four hours before they are released and at times even earlier than that.
But, six hours on, the pensive Warriors had not received their results until they decided to head to the stadium where they expected to have the results in time for them to conduct warm-up.
But hell was awaiting them.
The Zebras got onto the pitch and had about an hour of their warm-up while the Warriors were locked in their dressing room.
The atmosphere in the dressing room was tense as the team waited for the results.
That the match was scheduled to kick off at 6pm and with the clock ticking towards that hour didn’t help matters.
For the younger players, some of whom had probably not witnessed such dirty tactics at play, they together with coach Zdravko Logarusic were becoming as restless as they were livid.
It was understandable for someone who had been in charge of the Warriors for six matches without posting even a single win.
But then the team had a solution to the problem.
A unique one — song and dance.
Defender Jimmy Dzingai led the group and by the time the results came, the Warriors had literally done part of their “warm-up”.
“Song and dance helps a lot. It is part of mental preparation and given what was happening, it helped us relax a bit,” said Dzingai.
“We have learnt the art of relaxing so we use song and dance to relax. We knew the situation we were in and we needed to find a way to cope before the match.
“Songs are not meant for celebrations only, they are also meant for self-motivation.
“The songs helped us a lot in that difficult moment and we are happy we managed to win the game.”
The match eventually got underway 40 minutes later than the scheduled kick-off after all but one player returned negative Covid-19 results.
Goalkeeper Martin Mapisa was said to have returned an inconclusive result.
Zimbabwe won the match despite playing without having had standard warm-up due to the delay.
The victory, coupled with Zambia’s failure to beat Algeria at home, helped the Warriors qualify for their third straight Nations Cup finals.
Dzingai and company will now be composing songs to inspire them at the tournament in Cameroon next January.
