By Sports Reporter

FORMER Zimbabwe national football player and head coach Rahman Gumbo has died aged 56, with the local football fraternity mourning one of the country’s leading figures in the game.

A legend in Zimbabwe football, Gumbo had a successful coaching career spanning over two decades where he has coached and won a lot of silverware with countless clubs locally as well as in the region.

Gumbo, who was an integral member of one of Zimbabwe’s most successful Warriors squad which was popularly known as the Dream team collapsed at his home in Palapye, Botswana on Thursday and passed away at a Francistown hospital on Friday.

The Warriors legend was the head coach of Botswana Premier League side Morupule Wanderers before he was shown the exit door last week.

Gumbo’s last local top-flight job was in the domestic Castle Lager Premiership with the relegated Gweru-based die TelOne in 2019 while he has also had stints with Highlanders, CAPS United, FC Platinum, Chicken Inn, and other clubs in South Africa and Malawi.

However, it was in Botswana where Gumbo had become a very familiar face in recent years after several stints in the Botswana Premier League having coached some of the top teams in that country such as Township Rollers, Gaborone United and Mochudi Centre Chiefs.

In fact, the Zimbabwean gaffer, who holds the distinction of having won league titles in Zimbabwe, Botswana and Malawi, won the Botswana league title with Township Rollers in 2010.

Gumbo also coached the senior national team, the Warriors. He initially held the national team coaching job in 2005 but was subsequently dismissed following a 3-0 loss against Nigeria in addition to two other separate stints in 2012 and June 2019.