24 Nov 2024

The CAF Women’s Africa Cup of Nations  (WAFCON) Morocco 2024 draw conducted in Morocco on Friday has placed the senior women national team, the Mares in a tricky group.

The Mares are in Group B with Nigeria, Tunisia and Algeria, and although tough as it may seem, some football pundits are of the view that with good preparation and good technical support, they can compete.

Some have argued that the  team needed a good medical team, which included psychologist, dietician and physiotherapist that would work with the team during preparation until the finals.

The Mares head coach, Alex Malete  in an interview said that they welcome the draw.

“There is no easy group in continental games. We have played against Nigeria in our first edition in 2022 and we lost the game 2-0,” he said.

Malete was however happy that the draw was conducted early as that would afford them time to profile their opponents, as a team and individuals within the team.

The coach said as they profile teams, they would be looking to know the habits of their opponents, possible line ups, and the behavior of the team.

Malete admitted that Nigeria had grown as a team but the Mares had also shown a lot of improvements since the last edition.

Furthermore, he said this year the Mares played against Tunisia at the Tunis Cup and they lost 1-0, in a game they felt they could have won given that they controlled the game and dominated the ball.

As for Algeria, the coach said the team was not new to WAFCON as they would be making their sixth appearance in the coming edition.

He said Algeria had been active in the Olympic qualifiers and international friendly games playing good sides such as South Africa. Ends