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Fresh from Cosafa Castle Cup final humiliation at the hands of Zimbabwe’s Warriors, the Flames were thrown into latest turmoil on Tuesday when three key players, defenders Joseph Gatros and Maupo Msowoya and midfielder Moses Chavula, were ruled out of this weekend’s World Cup preliminary first leg against Ethiopia in Addis Ababa.
Team manager John Kaputa said Tuesday that Gatros, who was reduced to a side show in Sunday’s game against the Warriors, has not reported back to camp while Msowoya and Chavula are nursing injuries.
“Gatros did not report back to camp when we arrived from Harare and there has been no communication from him but as for Msowoya and Chavula they are nursing injuries and they have been advised to rest for at least two to three weeks,” said Kaputa.
He also said the three have since been replaced by Petrus Mwalweni and Emmanuel Chipatala.
Reacting to the development, coach Alan Gillett said: “It’s a pity that we’ll not have the three players but we have good replacements who can easily fit in their roles.”
The coach also said the team had a postmortem of the two games against Zimbabwe and are now focusing on the Ethiopia game.
“After the disappointment of losing both games against Zimbabwe, we had to go back to the drawing board and start all over again because this is a different game and we have told the players to forget about the loss to Zimbabwe and focus their attention on Ethiopia,” said Gillett.
Gillett also said he expects to have all the foreign-based players for Sunday’s game. Defender Patrick ‘General’ Mabedi, midfielder Peter Mgangira and gangling striker Russell Mwafulirwa are already in camp while John Maduka was expected to arrive on Tuesday from Durban.
Hitman Essau Kanyenda is expected to join the team in Addis Ababa.
Meanwhile, the game against Ethiopia has since been switched from Saturday to Sunday and the Flames have also changed their travel dates.
The team, which was expected to leave the country Wednesday, will now depart on Friday.
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