SOME Warriors fans believe the team’s new coach, Michael Nees, needs to be given a chance despite his limited experience in the African football terrain.
The Zifa normalisation committee on Tuesday announced that it had settled for the 57-year-old German to take over as the Warriors gaffer ahead of other potential candidates.
Five candidates, including a former Africa Cup of Nations winner Winfried Schäfer, had been shortlisted for the country’s top coaching job.
However, some Warriors fans reckon that Nees could be the answer to the Warriors’ problems and should be supported.
“Congratulations to the newly-appointed coach and we wish him all the best,” Warriors number one cheer leader Chris “Romario” Musekiwa said.
“I implore the football fraternity to rally behind him [Nees] in his endeavour to turn the Warriors’ fortunes around. The Zifa normalisation committee should give him maximum support through organising friendly internationals as we prepare for the 2025 Afcon qualifiers [that are] coming soon. We don’t know much about him, so the best we can do is to support him and see what he can deliver.”
Another fan, who uses the handle Wilo Wilocious on Facebook, said Zifa should give Nees room to select his players and assistants.
Zifa has in the past been criticised for selecting players for Warriors duties.
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“He will definitely succeed, provided he is given freedom to choose his own assistants. Freedom to go around watching local matches; freedom to have friendly matches; freedom to speak his mind.”
Hope Makarimayi said: “Wonderful decision. Let us all rally behind the German gaffer.”
Nees’s CV shows he had brief stints with Seychelles and Rwanda, but failed to lead them to anything meaningful.
He lasted three matches as Seychelles boss, while he coached Rwanda in two matches.
Nees also coached Israel and Kosovo Under-21 teams and has never qualified to any major tournament as a coach.
Nees’s main brief will be to lead the Zimbabwe senior men’s national team to the 2025 Afcon finals, whose qualifiers will be played and concluded towards the end of the year.
The 2026 Fifa World Cup campaign is seemingly ailing, but the new coach has pledged to breathe life back into it.
Nees said on Tuesday that he was a modern and innovative coach who is driven by international challenges and who can think outside the box to gain a competitive advantage.
“Without a doubt, the Warriors always have great players and massive team potential, but they need to avoid being too predictable to qualify for the Fifa World Cup and the Africa Cup of Nations,” he said
Zimbabwe are in Group J of the Afcon qualifiers together with Cameroon, Kenya and Namibia.
Zifa said Nees brings a wealth of experience and a distinguished background to the Warriors coaching role.
His qualifications include a Uefa pro licence from Germany and an MA degree in Sports Science, Performance Physiology and Ethnology from the prestigious University of Heidelberg.
Additionally, he has acquired a coaching qualification in “life kinetik,” a unique training methodology introduced to football by former Liverpool FC manager Jürgen Klopp.
