Zifa is waiting for COSAFA to release the fixtures of this year’s edition of the Senior Cup so that they can come up with a schedule for the Warriors’ preparations to the 2019 Afcon tournament.

Zimbabwe is among the five teams from Southern African region who are featuring at the continental competition set for Egypt from June 21, a few weeks after the COSAFA Cup had ended. The Warriors will play in the tournament opener against hosts Egypt before facing other Group A opponents DRC and Uganda in the coming days.

Speaking to NewsDay, Warriors team manager Wellington Mpandare said: “We are waiting on Cosafa to finalise the schedule for this years’ competition so that we see how much time will be left between that tournament and the Afcon finals.

“There are a number of teams that would like to engage us for preparatory matches, but the Cosafa tournament will determine a lot. Considering that there will be four nations at Cosafa that have qualified for the Afcon finals, the tournament can help us prepare for Egypt.”

The teams that have reportedly expressed interest in playing the friendlies with Zimbabwe include Nigeria, South Africa, Cameroon and Ghana.