Interim Warriors coach Norman Mapeza insists the team is moving in the right direction and making progress, despite losing all games he has overseen.

The former national team captain took over from Zdravko Logarusic and has now taken charge of three World Cup qualifiers, the Ghana double-header and the Limpopo derby against South Africa, all of which he has lost.

He however insists the plan is to prepare for the AFCON finals, and the team is making progress in that regard.

“When I came, I said I will try my best to revive our World Cup campaign, but everyone knows our situation. Then, I said I have lost those two games against Ghana, so I am going to build a team for the Afcon finals next year. From my point of view, we are moving in the right direction. I want to build for the future,” Mapeza said, according to NewsDay.

He threw into the fray 18-year old Dynamos teenager Bill Antonio in the narrow loss to Bafana Bafana and promised that will youngsters will be given a chance.

“We are introducing youngsters. I still have some youngsters who I will continue giving these opportunities to shine. If you look at South Africa’s situation, the majority of them are Under-23s who played at the Olympics in Tokyo so they had a foundation,” Mapeza said.

“Back home, we never had any. Most of the guys are getting old, but what would be the solution? Say these guys are getting old, do we have replacements for those guys? Knowledge Musona is 31 and Khama (Billiat) is 30, where are the replacements going to come from is the big question?,” he added.

Zimbabwe take on Ethiopia in the last qualifier at the National Sports Stadium tomorrow. – Soccer24 Zimbabwe