The Zimbabwe Football Association (ZIFA) has announced the appointment of former Chelsea assistant coach, Baltemar Brito as the head coach of the senior men’s team forthwith until June 2024. He will be assisted by Bongani Mafu and Genesis Mangombe.
The Normalisation Committee (NC) settled for the trio after an extensive recruitment and consultative process based on regional, continental, and global confederations’ guidelines. The NC set the coaches’ term of engagement to end at the same time with its mandate so that the next board will have the opportunity to recruit its own coaches.
Brito and his assistants’ first assignment will be the invitational match to celebrate Botswana’s Independence Day on 30 September. Thereafter, they will have to begin working on creating a team to compete in the 2026 FIFA World Cup qualifiers in November.
The Brazilian who was a former assistant coach at Chelsea Football Club from 2004 to 2007 is expected to lead Zimbabwe to their first World Cup.
Zimbabwe are drawn in Group C alongside Nigeria, South Africa, Benin Republic, Rwanda, and Lesotho for the 2026 FIFA World Cup qualifiers.
The Warriors will begin their World Cup qualifiers away against Rwanda in November 2023.
