Newly-appointed Warriors coach Michael Nees has explained how he selected the Warriors squad for the 2025 Afcon Qualifiers scheduled for early September.

Nees named a twenty-three man selection on Monday for the matches against Kenya and Cameroon on the 6th and 10th of September, respectively.

Khama Billiat was added to the squad on Wednesday after coming out of international retirement.

Speaking on The Couch on ZTN Prime, the German Gaffer said: “I phoned about twent-five players based outside. A few of them said they’re retired (from international football), but I wanted to ask what went wrong, and if they’re still interested.

“I then looked at who is more skilled and took out those who are injured, like Divine Lunga.

“I also looked on the position each player plays, and if you put all the players – locally and foreign based – you can end up having a lot of number 9s. You can’t go with five players from that position in international games.

“So you try to balance each position. That was the basic thinking (behind my selection) so that they could fit in each other.”

On dropping unattached players, Nees added: “We have a very motivated striker in England, who has no club at the moment. He wanted to come for the games, but I told him there was no chance for him if he is without a club.

“The reason behind that is you can’t go 100% into a challenge because if you get injured, the chances of getting a new team are ruined.”