Zimbabwe’s journalist-footballer ready for Rio

Just over a year ago, Zimbabwe international Rudo Neshamba took a hard look at her football career and did not like what she saw. She decided to enrol in a two-year journalism course at a college in Harare, and she continues to work on that goal, but the 24-year-old now has a more dramatic task at hand: helping the Mighty Warriors make an impact at the Women’s Olympic Football Tournament Rio 2016. Neshamba and the southern Africans were shock qualifiers for the finals, and the draw did them no favours – pitting them against 2012 bronze medallists Canada, two-time world champions Germany and a rapidly-improving Australia. But befitting her other life as a storyteller, Neshamba realises that Zimbabwe’s outsider status should help them work their way into the event.

“Of course it is a tough group, and we will not be the favourites to advance to the next round,” she admitted to FIFA.com. “But I think that leaves the pressure on the other sides. We are the underdogs, and all our opponents will be expected to beat us. That should allow us to play without pressure and approach our matches as we normally do, while they might underestimate us.”Dramatic qualifying campaign A fourth-place finish in the 2000 CAF Africa Women’s Cup of Nations is considered the high point of achievement for Zimbabwe’s national team. So being one of two qualifiers for Rio 2016 – along with neighbours South Africa – was indeed a shock, but they proved themselves a team of fate in qualifying.  After receiving a bye into the second …

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