ZIMBABWE NATIONAL TEAM

2018-2019

Match Worn Shirt

Did you Know?

The Zimbabwe national football team, also known as The Warriors, represents Zimbabwe in men’s international association football. The national team is governed by the Zimbabwe Football Association (ZFA, also known as ZIFA). The Warriors have not participated in the FIFA World Cup, although the team has qualified for the Africa Cup of Nations four times. Zimbabwe has dominated the regional COSAFA Cup (formerly Cosafa Castle Cup), winning the southern African trophy a record six times, ahead of rivals South Africa and Zambia. The team represents both FIFA and Confederation of African Football (CAF)associations. For the greater part of the colonial era in the country, when Zimbabwe was known as Rhodesia, only Rhodesians of European origin were selected for the national football team. But after 1965 the team became multi-racial. In 1969, Rhodesia took part in the Confederation of African Football 1970 FIFA World Cup qualification tournament. This was their first attempt to qualify for the FIFA World Cup. Contrary to the team being viewed as the representative team of white Rhodesians, the team was multi-racial including black players. They were drawn against the Australia national football team. Both legs were held in Lourenco Marques, Portuguese Mozambique as the Rhodesian team were unable to get Australian visas due to international sanctions imposed against the white-supremacist colonial government of Ian Smith. Zimbabwe (Rhodesia) drew the first leg 1–1 but lost the second leg 3–1 thus eliminating the team from qualification. In 1980, following the country’s reconstitution as Zimbabwe, Zimbabwe played its first FIFA World Cup qualifying match for 11 years against the Cameroon national football team. However they lost 2–1 on aggregate after a 1–0 win in the first leg in Salisbury and a 2–0 loss in the second leg. Following this, the country passed a law that people who held British passports would not be permitted to hold a Zimbabwean passport, which mean that players such as goalkeeper Bruce Grobbelaar were not selected for the national team for 10 years. Following a change in policy that allowed Grobbelaar to play for Zimbabwe, who entered the country on his British passport, Zimbabwe under manager Reinhard Fabisch were one match away from qualifying for the 1994 FIFA World Cup. However, they lost their final qualifying match to Cameroon. In 2004 and 2006, Zimbabwe qualified for their first and second Africa Cup of Nations respectively. In either turn, the Warriords were eliminated in the first round of the tournament matches. In 2015, the Zimbabwe national football team was banned from participating in 2018 FIFA World Cup qualifying due to an unpaid debt to a coach who had taken temporary charge of the Warriors over a short period of time, José Claudinei. At the time, the team was experiencing its strongest period for many years, qualifying for both the 2017 and 2019 Africa Cup of Nations.