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Mapeza labelling it as “tough”.
I somewhat disagree though.
Preliminary Draw Group G – Zimbabwe, Guinea, Egypt, Mozambique/Comoros Islands is winnable.

If you aspire to play at the World Cup, then whoever you’re fixtured to play is irrelevant.
If the group had Zimbabwe, Swaziland, Botswana and say Malawi, my approach would not be different to the one where we are playing Egypt and Guinea.
At this level, you don’t underrate or overrate anyone; most importantly, with all our ducks in a row, on a good day, Zimbabwe’s Warriors are an astounding potent force.

The Warriors team that we have has always been strong on potential.
Well-prepared (of which we have never been), with a bit of good fortune added, our team can beat anyone on the African continent.
Sadly, our perennially complacent and mediocre approach to international matches just has to change.

At best, it’s amateurish – the lack of adequate financial resources and poor organisation is our Archilles Heel and it’s a major hindrance to qualifying for major tournaments such as the World Cup.
The defeat of a highly-rated Mali by the five-star Warriors resulted in a massive and vital jump in the official Fifa rankings and that has helped the Warriors to avoid a potentially slippery preliminary round fixture.

A former Warriors coach used to robustly ill-inform the nation that the official rankings were “useless”.
I hope he now knows better.
One of the best local sports journalists produced in recent times, a statistically-astute Lawrence Moyo, was vehement in his respect for the official Fifa rankings and the need to play competitively to boost our world ranking.
Needless to say, he was vitally spot-on.

In my opinion, fundamental issues attendant to Zimbabwe’s qualification dreams for the Fifa World Cup 2014 Brazil, must be addressed as a national emergency.
I pray the qualification issue even, somehow, via the front or back door, finds itself as a deliberation point on the Cabinet agenda.
Yes, it’s that serious.

At this level nhambe-tambe haibatsiri.
The opportunity to fly the national flag at the World Cup must be religiously pursued by all.
The chase for glory, though, may cost a few million dollars. Qualification will render the exercise worthwhile. Yes, I am here making a case for Government to fully-fund the Warriors in all the qualifiers.

It is standard Government behaviour to fund your national football team.
Our Government actually does support the national team; only that the support is quite erratic, making it of no effect! History has proven that players don’t only play for national pride when representing their nations.

Professional athletes are motivated by financial rewards and that also includes full-time football players.
Issues to do with daily allowances, camping/accommodation facilities, nutrition, adequate quality training and playing kit availability, favourable itineraries, and the likes, must be satisfactorily addressed well before the players are in camp.

A departure from the haphazard way of doing things would be a good start to these qualifiers.
The national coach needs huge support, everybody’s support.

Friend-and-foe alike must support the push for the World Cup as qualification would reap huge rewards, not to mention huge national pride which money cannot buy.
I pray that Mapeza be adequately remunerated.

I personally wouldn’t expect much from a poorly paid coach who would equate to a poorly motivated employee.
In any case, best-practice is that a national team’s coaching job is highly-rewarding.

Somehow, that compensates for the pressure-cooker demand for favourable results.
We must, as a nation, avail all the needed resources to enable the national coach to undertake spying trips to his heart’s content.

It is standard warfare practice to scout on your intended adversary.
Ancient warfare, even as depicted in the Bible, provides many such examples.

Norman needs a blank cheque to assist us to qualify.
Of course, if he was to fail to produce with all the needed resources availed, he would have no excuse for failure.
The exit door would be his next easy assignment.

I find it actually silly that in this day and age, when football has gone so competitive, Fifa still uses the ‘friendly’ game tag.
That in my opinion is way outdated.

Rugby and cricket do not have the so-called ‘friendly’matches.
Nothing should be friendly about two sets of professional football nations engaging one another in a fight for reputation and rankings (when a match is not a tournament qualifier).

A case in point is the upcoming Zimbabwe-Zambia so-called friendly international, in a few days time.
Zimbabwe must go all out not to “try systems or combinations” but for a win.

I agree with Mapeza’s recent comments that you must create a winning culture and mentality.
That is only possible when you actually win regularly.
“Winning is a habit, unfortunately, so is losing”, iconic football coach, Vince Lombardi famously remarked once.
So, Zambia must be beaten.

• Gerald Maguranyanga is a fitness expert who once worked with the Warriors and Dynamos.