WHILE he was the fans’ favourite to take over as Warriors coach, Baltemar Brito fell in the early vetting stages and could not make it to the interviews, fresh details emerged yesterday.
Brito is one of dozens of coaches that applied for the senior men’s football team coaching job after Zifa invited applicants.
The former Highlanders coach guided Zimbabwe to impressive draws against Rwanda and Nigeria in their first two Group C Fifa World Cup qualifiers last year.
But the Zifa normalisation committee decided against hiring on a permanent basis.
It was expected that Zifa would hire a permanent coach before the next set of qualifiers against Lesotho and South Africa, but they have employed Jairos Tapera on an interim basis.
A well-placed source, close to Brito, yesterday told NewsDay Sport that the Portuguese national was not interviewed by Zifa, dismissing reports doing rounds that the team to play in South Africa was selected by the former Highlanders’ mentor.
“People should know that he [Brito] did not make any list (of players). He does not want to be involved in any politics because he can still come back to Zimbabwe and does not want to suffer any retribution. He did not make any list, was not interviewed and did not meet Zifa. People are taking things personally as an excuse, but that is not important at all. That list did not come from Brito and that theory makes is making them crazy,” the source said.
The source said Brito never had a fallout with Zifa over the report he prepared after the two matches that he presided over.
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In the report, Brito said; “Like usual, I’m reporting all the positives and negatives, in my opinion, about this last camping for we continue improve and make a better picture of Zimbabwe football and go in the direction of best standards of modern football.”
“Once again, I want to congratulate the normalisation committee on all efforts that they are doing in the direction of our requests and for it is very important we realise what from last report to this one missed for we try fix it on March camping. So, from last report to this one, there are some details that to us they (sic) are so important and we need fix it soon as possible: Try find more easy and straight flights, very important because time is short and players should arrive fresh possible. Return ticket because of budgets OK we can try find cheap solutions but let’s try avoid it. We found gym on Kigali, but on Huye, no, we know that some places would be hard, but as is imperial all places we camp have a gym. But hotels of camping, there was not one room just for medical department. Create their cabinet, go to the rooms is not best options, because players share rooms and we can’t invade their privacy of them, this is one aspect we really should improve,” he said.
He said he was not satisfied with the recovery strategy from the medical team and needed to have their plan before going into camp and there was short supply of training equipment.
He added: “So, we start this camping with the select of squad that create sometimes too much opinions and divisions influenced by social media too. I know that this is a sensible subject, but is important to trust in my ideas and understand all decisions I take are for the benefit of Zimbabwe football. So some of us travel from different points, on different days and after a long journey like that one when one arrives for camping, it is very important the players make quick as possible the transfer for hotel and not waiting for the delegation that receives them. The players and staff will have too much time to do the welcome celebration on next day with more fresh faces not after 16 hours journey and everyone expect to go Hotel soon as possible to recover and start on other day the preps.”
He said he was happy with assistant coach Bongani Mafu’s absence as “... the guy doesn’t add value”, suggesting that Zifa appoints another fitness trainer as Antonio Torres had too much on his plate.
He said it was paramount to make background checks on players as Admiral Muskwe came into camp with an injury and captain Marvelous Nakamba brought his own recovery equipment, “... so medical department with resources we have should be more active and interventive.
Brito said the nutritional aspect for the players was a “catastrophe”.
He said he needed two friendly matches before the next camp but did not want to lose the core of players that did duty in Rwanda.
