Mares hit the ground running
The ladies national football team on high gear ahead of African Women Cup of Nations
The ladies senior national football team, The Mares have hit the ground running in preparation for the upcoming Africa Women Cup of Nations ( AWCON) to be hosted in Morocco in July.
The team has started intense preparations this week, with a two legged game against Southern African opponents, Zambia. The Mares lost their first game by a solitary goal and managed a one all draw in the second game.
The team has shown their intense progress of late, not with just punching a ticket to the prestigious tournament, but their play on the field has improved and look set to mount a challenge at the tournament. Speaking in an interview, the Mares
coach, Gaolethoo Nkutusang said they are satisfied with their preparations so far.
“We work with what we have in front of us, Zambia is a good opponent, maybe we should take Ghana next,” she said in a telephone interview this week. Adding to that, the Mares have been drawn in the toughest group which the coach considers to be the group of death in the tournament against the 11 times defending champions Nigeria, last season’s tournament finalists South Africa and Burundi in Group C, in a draw hosted last week in Rabat, Morocco. “It is a tough group but we are also a special team on our own, we have played South Africa before and on several occasions we have been a pricking pain, so we consider ourselves to be the best,” puffed up with confidence, Nkutusang said.
Nonetheless, the Super Falcons and Banyana Banyana will most definitely give coach Ronaldo as Nkutusang is known, a tough time, she will have to scratch her head in search for tactics that will contain two of the finest teams in African Women’s football. Eventually, should she be able to emerge out of the group, she will go down as the most decorated local coach, having led the team to their maiden AWCON tournament. Group A has pitted together Morocco, Burkina Faso, Senegal and Uganda while group B has Cameroon, Zambia, Tunisia and Togo.
The group stage will see the top two teams from the group, qualify automatically for the quarter- finals, with the third- place team, seeking a place in the last 8 as one of the two best losers. So this means the team can still afford finishing third in their group, by avoiding heavy defeats against their opponents. The 12 teams at the tournament will fight for one of Africa’s four coveted World Cup spots; teams can also qualify by way of the inter- confederation playoffs. Ten teams from federations around the world will compete in the minitournament to determine the final three qualifying spots in the big show thus Botswana will still have a chance to qualify for the World Cup should things turn out ugly at AWCON.
As defending and 11- time AWCON champions, Nigeria are one of the favorites. The Super Falcons have qualified for every World Cup since its inception.