01 Nov 2023

The senior women national football team, The Mares, are out of the Paris 2024 Olympic qualifiers race after being booted out by Tanzania’s Twiga Stars with an aggregate score of 3-0 on Tuesday night.

Although some football pundits had faith that the Mares, who lost 2-0 a fortnight ago will reverse the deficit and ultimately proceed to the next round, well, that was not to be.

Head coach, Mohambi Saulos, was unfazed by the loss as he said the team was actually building its momentum.

Furthermore, he said his charges created a lot of chances, which they however failed to utilize, but Tanzania capitalised on their mistake and netted a goal.

He said they have now closed the Olympic qualifying chapter and now focusing on the Women Africa Cup of Nations (WAFCON).

He said he was confident The Mares are a solid team and in the WAFCON campaign, they would launch a fierce battle to make sure that they qualify for Africa’s showpiece. They have had three weeks to prepare for the fixture against Kenya.

“Three weeks will be the longest time that I will have with the team. I always have one or two days to prepare. It was not enough and in some instances it was recovery training,” he lamented. The coach said he was hopeful that The Mares would be a different team against Kenya, and would be in a position to bring positive results.

He said they have planned very well for the game, adding that football was one sport that “you wonder how you lost the game.”

Yarona FM sports presenter, Fox Phatshimo, said the Mares’ failure to proceed to the next round might have been necessitated by lack of well-defined women’s league. He said every year, the women’s league starts late, adding that national team players had to play a minimum of 40-45 league games in a season.

“In our case, most of the national team players are from the Gaborone Region, and even if they play home and away they would not meet the 40-45 league games threshold, because they are less than 15, and then you expect them to compete with players who play more games per season,” he said.

Phatshimo said it was evident that the local league was not designed to give players enough exposure to competitions. ENDS