Tangawarima shines as Zimbabwe ambassador. THERE are no Warriors hunting for trophies in the jungles of Equatorial Guinea and Gabon, but there is a Zimbabwean football expert who is proudly flying his country's flag high at the 2012 Nations Cup finals.

Felix Tangawarima - widely acknowledged as the finest Zimbabwean referee of all time - is working at the 2012 Nations Cup finals as the Fifa technical instructor for match officials handling the biggest football festival on the continent.

The irony of it all is that while Tangawarima is now a specialist in developing the best football referees that Africa can offer, his home nation Zimbabwe does not have even a single referee among the 39 match officials on duty at the 2012 Nations Cup finals.

Tangawarima, who turns 54 on March 23 this year, will be in Equatorial Guinea and Gabon for the duration of the 2012 Nations Cup finals.

He might have failed to realise a childhood dream to officiate at the World Cup finals, going only as far as handling matches at the 2000 Olympic Games in Sydney, but Tangawarima is writing a fairytale long after blowing his final whistle.

Two years ago, Tangawarima broke new ground when he became the first Zimbabwean to be selected to the panel of Fifa instructors who were working with the 30 referees selected for the 2010 World Cup finals in South Africa.

Yesterday, he spoke to The Herald and gave an insight of what he was doing at the 2012 Nations Cup finals.

Tangawarima has been based in Equatorial Guinea, since the start of the tournament, and will be moving to Gabon on February 2.

"I am here as the Technical Instructor for referees where my duties, among others, is to technically prepare referees for the matches and also analyse their performance and debrief them the following day after every match in class," said Tangawarima.

"I monitor on TV, every second of the match played, then cut some images of areas we would want to discuss and correct with the referee where necessary.

"I should be changing base together and moving to Gabon on the 2nd February."

Tangawarima said it was ironic that, while he was part of the specialists tasked with developing top-class referees, there were no Zimbabwean match officials at the 2012 Nations Cup finals.

"As for our referees' absence in this tournament, it gives me a lot of pressure, as a Zimbabwean, because I am a continental Instructor and developer of referees but then I don't have any of my own men working here," said Tangawarima.

"When my colleagues here are talking about their national teams and referees, I just keep quiet as I have nothing to talk about."

The profile of local match officials reached an all-time low last year and Zifa decided to hire referees from Zambia and South Africa to handle the Mbada Diamonds Cup semi-finals and final amid growing concerns of poor and biased match officiating on the domestic front.

Tangawarima said it was a heartbreaking experience for him to work at a Nations Cup finals where the Warriors were not taking part.

"About our national team, I think preparations are very, very important and it should not only be shoddy preparations but thorough preparations," said Tangawarima.

"National teams, for any sporting disciplines, are supposed to be national projects and, as a nation, we all need to pull our resources together and take pride in our national teams participating is these tournaments like Afcon. All the teams that are taking part here are heavily supported by their respective Governments and the big companies that operate in those countries."

Tangawarima said the Warriors had blown a big chance to make a huge impact at a Nations Cup that is missing its regular heavyweights like Nigeria, Cameroon and record winners Egypt.

Highly-rated Senegal, installed by some as the favourites after a strong qualifying campaign, were knocked out in the first round and both Ghana and Cote d'Ivoire failed to find the spark in their first group games. Tangawarima believes the Warriors would have made a big impact had they made it to Equatorial Guinea and Gabon.

"This was an opportunity to advertise and sell our players to the big leagues of the world where they can develop into better athletes because of the intense competition there and the good training facilities found in those leagues," said Tangawarima.

"But we have to look forward, and not backwards, and we need to now make sure that we prepare thoroughly for the next Cup of Nations in South Africa next year because we simply have to qualify.

"The beauty of the game now that there are no longer any big teams or names in African football and, on a good day, any team can beat any team and what we have seen in the qualifying rounds and at the finals of this tournament supports that. We have some very good young players and they also need to come and display their skills at tournaments like this one."

Now a full-time Fifa referees' instructor, based at the world football governing body's Southern and Eastern Regional Development Office headquarters in Gaborone, Tangawarima experienced at close quarters, the stunning revolution that swept Botswana into their debut Nations Cup show.

And the Zebras, plagued by injuries to key players in their first game against Ghana, did not show any signs of inferiority complex as they battled long and hard and were unlucky to lose 0-1 against the Black Stars.

Tangawarima wants the Warriors to be guided by the same self-belief spirit that helped him score a first for his country with his historic appointment by Fifa as a full-time referees' instructor for the Southern African regions.

The appointment made Tangawarima the first local official to work full-time for Fifa and also put him in the class of few Zimbabweans to work on a full-time basis for such big international organisations.

That class includes former Zimbabwe Olympic Committee president Tommy Sithole, who is now a full-time employee of the International Olympic Committee where he works as the IOC's director for international co-operation and development.

Tangawarima revealed, at the time of his appointment, that he would always invest his time in trying to help Zimbabwean football.