ZIMBABWE’S preparations for the 2012 African Cup of Nations qualifiers remained in limbo with the Warriors yesterday missing out on a glorious opportunity to fine-tune for their Group A opening showdown with Liberia.

On a day when the entire global football family was taking advantage of the latest Fifa date for international friendlies, the Warriors were conspicuous by their absence from the hive of activities that characterised other national teams.

Zimbabwe’s failure to capitalise on the August 11 Fifa date for international matches is a dent on the Zifa leadership whose success will inevitably be measured on the strength and state of the Warriors.

A poor Warriors outfit will reflect badly on the Cuthbert Dube board, which has set qualification for the 2012 finals in Gabon and Equatorial Guinea as a major priority.

Eleven group winners, the runners-up in Group K, plus the two best runners-up from the other groups will join co-hosts Gabon and Equatorial Guinea at the Nations Cup finals.

But the Zifa board, which has so far done well to try and clean up the tainted image of the domestic game, was yesterday found wanting as Norman Mapeza and his technical crew were left to watch a BancABC Sup8r quarter-final replay between CAPS United and Shooting Stars at Rufaro when they should have been assessing the local and foreign Warriors at their disposal.

Just about every serious nation was in action including continental minnows Mauritania, who played host to Palestine in Nouakchott, while Burkina Faso and Congo were scheduled to play in Paris, France, joining in the new trend of staging friendlies in Europe where many African footballers now ply their trade.

It was a similar tale for West African sides Guinea and Mali, who had a date in Marseille in France while Angola took on the 2010 World Cup’s fourth best team, Uruguay, in Lisbon.

The Warriors for whom the bulk of their foreign legion are based in South Africa could have also arranged a game at one of the venues in that country and minimise on the astronomic cost of airfares.

Traditional giants Cameroon, Egypt, Nigeria, Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana were also in action, as were the likes of Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia and Togo.

The friendlies also gave a host of new foreign and local national coaches a first look at their teams including Zambia’s new gaffer Italian Dario Bonneti, Jan Poulsen of Denmark who is now in charge of Tanzania and Bafana Bafana’s new local mentor Pitso Mosimane.

Bafana Bafana played Ghana’s Black Stars at Soccer City in Mosimane’s first game as head coach since the former SuperSport United coach replaced Brazilian Carlos Alberto Parreira at the helm of the 2010 World Cup hosts.

Mali, who are in the same group with the Warriors, also have a new coach — former France midfielder Alain Giresse — and he got a chance to assess his new team against Guinea.

But sadly that was not the situation with the Warriors and caretaker coach Mapeza now faces a tough task in preparing the senior team for their opening Group A game against Liberia’s Lone Star in Monrovia on September 5.

After using a hastily assembled side of locals in a friendly against Botswana in Selibe Phikwe, Mapeza had been hoping that yesterday would present him with the best opportunity of looking at some of the Warriors who are dotted around the globe.

But the former Warriors skipper could only reflect in disappointment on a lost chance and Mapeza admitted as much yesterday but remained optimistic that his national team would still find some time to make up in their preparations.

"We should have been playing today but it is unfortunate that we don’t have a game.

"That should have been our chance to assess more players we might need for the upcoming assignments. I had suggested that we get a game to capitalise on the availability of the players but Zifa indicated that they could not secure the opponents that they would have wanted us to play,’’ said Mapeza.

It is the missed chance to look at the foreign contingent that Mapeza rued the most with the coach revealing he was eager to have had a chance to look at such players like Austrian-based midfielder Justice Majabvi and Onismor Bhasera who plays for Plymouth Argyle in the English League One.

"A friendly match would have been useful to help us look at a number of players like Edward Sadomba, Justice Majabvi and Onismor Bhasera.

"For example, we know Bhasera as a leftback here but I understand in England they are using him as an attacking left midfielder and we could have used a match to gauge all those players.

"Of course, we always talk to most of the players on the phone but that is certainly different from assessing them in action and as coaches you always want to see the players for yourself at training and in a game situation. Even a game against Swaziland would have been useful as long as it gives us a run in,’’ Mapeza said.

Swaziland were instead featuring in a friendly against Mozambique with Sihlangu losing 2-1 to the Mambas.

Zifa board member for competitions Benedict Moyo regretted the golden opportunity to help Mapeza prepare his charges which the association had lost but blamed their failure to secure "top opponents because of our dented image’’.

"The truth of the matter is that our ranking is so low and because of our tarnished image, some of the countries that we had targeted are reluctant to play us for their final preparations, so we have shot ourselves in the foot.

"We had targeted some of the big guys but we failed to find the opponents, maybe we should have also looked at other smaller nations too but we wanted to avoid being blamed for always looking at the smaller teams for friendly matches,’’ Moyo said.

The former Warriors and Mighty Warriors coach said Zifa were now working on Plan B to afford Mapeza a longer training camp before the senior team leaves for Monrovia.

"We are now mobilising resources that will give the coach at least a two-week training camp with the players where they can be released on weekends only to play for their PSL clubs.

"It’s unfortunate that we missed that opportunity but we are also working on arranging a game for the team in the final week before their actual match which we hope can give the coach a chance to assess his players,’’ Moyo said.

Apart from Majabvi, Bhasera and Sadomba, the Warriors also have a host of players like Costa Nhamoinesu, Clemence Matawu, Noel Kaseke, Obert Moyo, Ovidy Karuru, Takesure Chinyama, Mike Temwanjira, Vusa Nyoni and Dickson Choto who are still to be assessed by Mapeza and his assistants Joey Antipas and Brenna Msiska.