06 Dec 2023

The senior women’s football team, The Mares have pleaded with the country’s football governing body to speed up  preparations process following the team’s consecutive qualification to the WAFCON that will be hosted by Morocco next year.

Now that the qualification celebrations are over, there is need for more focus and resources channelled to help prepare the team.

“We need to prepare well and the intensity of our preparations will show how far we want to go in Morocco,” said coach Alex Malete.

He said they need to sit down, the whole of the technical team and work with clear objectives.

Malete said this  will inform them how they do their preparation.

“But without doubt, we should do better than how we did at the last WAFCON edition,” he said.

Captain Sedilame ‘Tsontso’ Bosija said that now that they have qualified,  good preparations are need to win games.

“I think that’s the only thing that we need to do. We therefore need to focus on our weaknesses, correct them and focus on our strengths.  As players, we therefore need to keep the same energy and be positive,” she said.

Keitumetse ‘Ben 10’ Dithebe said there is a lot of work that needs to be done.

“We have been to the WAFCON, we now know that preparations will be very key for us to make it to the last stage of the tournament. So moving forward, we need more training camps in and outside the country to help us to prepare well for the tournament,” she said.

Kesegofetse ‘Odinga’ Mochawe said preparations must start in earnest and they need more training camps and friendly games.

“This time around, we need to go all the way, but we can only do that if we prepare well,” she noted.

Refilwe ‘Seven’ Tholakele said the bottom line is that the Botswana Football Association (BFA) should go all the way to find friendly games and training camps for the team.

She said it is during those training camps that they can be able to correct some of their weaknesses.

“All the teams will be prepared so we need to be sharp and precise to be able to compete,” she said.

BFA president Maclean Letshwiti said  for The Mares to go to WAFCON with confidence, they need support and BFA has to prepare them to go and compete and not just to add to the numbers.

“To do that, it means we must go out as the BFA and mobilise funding for them because it’s cheaper to play WAFCON but it is expensive to prepare,” he said.

The BFA president said he is confident that this time around, they will go up to the semi-finals

“Look, we have relationships with a lot of African countries and the new coach, Didier Gomes Da Rosa is using his influence to ensure that both teams, The Mares and The Zebras, find competitive friendly games.” He added.

Also, he said if Botswana wants to qualify for the World Cup, they must invest in women football. Ends