Brito eyes Warriors job

Sport
Brito’s contract with Highlanders expires at the end of the year and there have not been any moves to renew it yet.

HIGHLANDERS coach Baltemar Brito has revealed that he has applied for the vacant Warriors coaching post on the advice of his friend and AS Roma coach Jose Mourinho.

Brito’s contract with Highlanders expires at the end of the year and there have not been any moves to renew it yet.

“We have four more months to our contract at Highlanders and no one has approached us in terms of renewal,” Brito said.

“We know that our manager applied for this job, for the Warriors’ job and even this week, I received a call from Jose Mourinho because he read something about the possibility of me being the next coach and he gave me the support  and he gave me the power to accept the challenge if it comes.”

He said because of the short period that is left in his current deal, he has to start looking at other options.

“But it depends not only on us because we are focused here. We have four months to our contract and we have to start thinking about the future because with the four months, we don’t know what the future holds. We don’t know if Highlanders will or will not renew our contracts. Too many doves in the air, so we need to look around,” Brito said.

The Portuguese national said he was proud to be associated with Zimbabwe.

Brito said when he arrived in the country, his objective was to improve football, not only at Highlanders, but in Zimbabwe as a whole.

The Zifa normalisation committee led by Lincoln Mutasa has indicated that it will be announcing the next Warriors coach within the next two weeks, in time for the gaffer to come up with a squad to feature in friendly matches in the upcoming Fifa international breaks as preparations for the 2026 Fifa World Cup qualifiers gather momentum.

Another foreigner who has been confirmed to have applied for the Warriors’ job is Serbian national Kostadin Papic, who has previously been in charge of South African giants Orlando Pirates and Kaizer Chiefs.

North Macedonian Gjoko Hadzievski is another name that has been thrown into the fray.

Embattled former Dynamos coach Herbert Maruwa is also said to be interested, together with veteran Shepherd Murape.

A technical committee appointed by the normalisation committee will soon hold interviews and make recommendations on who will take the hot seat in Zimbabwean football.

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