19 Sep 2024

The senior women national football team, The Mares have started their preparations for the 2024 CAF Total Energies Women’s Africa Cup of Nations (WAFCON), which was moved to next year.

The tournament, which was initially lined up for July 2024 in Morocco, was rescheduled to July 2025.

Already, the Botswana team has had its first camp in January and coach Alex Malete said the January meeting was an assessment camp where they had 35 local players and worked with High Performance centre at the University of Botswana.

He said they also had their camp in Turkey, where they took part in the Antalya Women’s Cup tournament, which featured the FC Zurich and the Russian national team.

Also, he said they played against Lesotho and Namibia, which was followed by a training camp in Tunisia where they played to a goalless draw against Tanzania and lost 0-1 to Tunisia.

He said their next FIFA week would be from October 21-30 and it would also be COSAFA Women Championship, which will be held in South Africa.

“Also in our plan, we have the last FIFA week of the year from November 25 - December 3 and we are waiting confirmation to play an international friendly game,” he said.

He said before WAFCON, they would have at least three FIFA international camps.  

“What we have tried to do this year was to incorporate young players from Under 20, such as Jessica Modise from Mexican Girls, now with Gaborone United in the team.  She played one game in Turkey, against Lesotho, Namibia, Tunisia and Tanzania and she is only 18 years,” he said.

Malete said they had other young players in the likes of Dimpho Sedirwa, aged 19, Lorato Motlogelwa, aged 20, adding that they had a lot of young players in their team although they were yet to get game time. 

He said the idea was to prepare for the future, adding that they were trying to have a lot of players per position.

Malete said as the year end, they would narrow down their scope to a smaller group, given that so far, they had called close to 45 players, since last year, adding that not all of them had game time. 

The coach said some of the players were called in camp for assessment only. 

He said there was a lot of talent in most of the youngsters adding that they would be given some gate time as they mature.   

Twelve teams, which are to participate in WAFCON are Nigeria, Zambia, Tunisia, Democratic Republic of Congo, Algeria, Ghana, Botswana, Senegal, Tanzania, Mali and hosts Morocco.  South Africa are the defending champions. Ends