Warriors coach Zdravko Logarusic has blamed a lack of match fitness for his charges’ lacklustre performance in a goalless draw at home to South Africa in a World Cup qualifier this Friday.

Zimbabwe could have lost the match had it not been for right-back Takudzwa Chimwemwe’s last-ditch clearance off the line in the second half.

Speaking during his post-match press conference, the Croat said a lack of match fitness in his team partly contributed to the eventual result. He said:

It was a difficult game, and I will give you a few thoughts. You could see at the end of the game that we had a problem with match fitness because only four of our players are playing regularly at their clubs.

We have (Onismor) Bhasera, Marshall (Munetsi), Khama (Billiat) and (Knowledge) Musona, who are playing regularly at their clubs, the rest of our players are not playing regularly.

The boys from Zambia are in pre-season, the boys from South Africa don’t play regularly- for example, (Kuda) Mahachi doesn’t play, (Divine) Lunga doesn’t play and even Alec too doesn’t play.

Logarusic believes that under the circumstances, a draw with South Africa was a fair result. He said:

The draw is there. Even last time, I was looking at the history, when you qualified for Egypt (AFCON 2019), you didn’t win your first game, you won in Congo.

It was a difficult game, we needed a bit of individual brilliance, we didn’t get it.

In the end, I think a draw was a fair result and we have to look in some other games to try and catch up for those two points. – Soccer24 Zimbabwe