Zimbabwean football is in a state of shock following the national team's worst-ever home defeat.

The Warriors lost 2-0 to Swaziland in a Cosafa Cup quarter-final played on Sunday in Harare, the first time that they have fallen at home to a lower-ranked nation.

It was the first game in charge for coach Wieslaw Grabowski, and football fans and the media have reacted by calling for his head.

In an unprecedented move, the Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation devoted the first 20 minutes of Monday's main television news bulletin to analysing the shock defeat.

The nation's two biggest newspapers, the Herald and Daily News, both called the result "disgraceful", a term also used by team captain Peter Ndlovu.

Training problems

The squad was assembled at short notice, and Grabowski said that poor preparations cost Zimbabwe the game.

"I only had three days to work with the team," he said.

"If you don't train together then you will have problems."

The Zimbabwe Football Association (Zifa) were expecting the match to be played in July, but chairman Leo Mugabe also refused to accept responsibility for the chaotic preparations.

"The coach should have started working with the locally-based players while waiting for the foreign-based players to arrive."

Polish-born Grabowski was appointed as coach in March and tasked to take Zimbabwe to the 2004 Nations Cup finals.

He was chosen ahead of former Warriors goalkeeper Bruce Grobbelaar, whose salary demands were too high for Zifa to meet.

Despite being ranked eleventh in Africa, Zimbabwe have never qualified for the Nations Cup finals.

Their campaign begins with a home game against Mali on 8 September.