The Sunday Mail
Makomborero Mutimukulu in CAIRO, EGYPT
AT their best the Democratic Republic of Congo have been awful, offering very little substance or resistance as they fell to identical 2-0 defeats at the hands of Uganda and Egypt.
The Leopards are the only team in Group A who are not in with a chance of qualifying for the knock out stages of Afcon 2019 as they sit bottom of the table – winless, goalless and pointless.
However, they are not shameless and therein lies their danger.
The Warriors’ opponents are desperate to atone for a miserable Egypt 2019. They want to get back home with something positive to point at because so far they have been getting a deserved lashing from the DRC press.
After the defeat to Uganda they issued a public apology and there are indications that they want to use the game against Zimbabwe to offer some sort of restitution to their fans.
“We cannot go away from this tournament without having scored a goal or won a game, we cannot afford to do that,” said DRC captain Youssouf Mulumbu’s at yesterday’s pre-match press conference.
“You know with us when things are not going our way we tend to get frustrated and that was the case in the games against Uganda and Egypt. “But against Zimbabwe we need to be patient and appreciate that the game is for 90 minutes. There is no doubt that we need to do better than we did in the first two matches. We need to work hard and achieve the result that will satisfy our fans.”
After Mulumbu had spoken like an army general, sounding all patriotic and invincible, a Congolese journalist asked Warriors captain Knowledge Musona of what he thought of DRC’s showing at this biennial football fiesta.
The usually diplomatic Zimbabwean skipper pulled no punches.
“There are changes to the team we played in the qualifiers; both in terms of players. and the way they do play.
“In the qualifiers they played as a team but here I have watched their two games and they seem to play as individuals.
“There are times when they are good but there are times when they are not so good and we intend to take advantage of their frailties and win this game.
“It will not be easy but we have to fight and beat Congo so that we qualify for the next round,” said Musona.
The Warriors shared the same qualification group with DRC and collected four points from them as they powered their way to the top of a group that also had Congo Brazzaville and Liberia in the mix.
However, with players such as Cedrick Bakambu and Yannick Bolasie in the opposition ranks Zimbabwe will need to avoid the costly mistakes that saw them gift opening goals to both Egypt and Uganda.
