admin
Grace Chingoma-Senior Sports Reporter
THE Zimbabwe senior national women’s football team’s chances of advancing to the semi-finals of the COSAFA Women Championships are getting slimmer by the day.
The Mighty Warriors meet Botswana in their last Group B match today at Nelson Mandela Bay in South Africa.
And they need an outright victory and goals, against Botswana and hope teams in other groups drop points along the way.
Tanzania became the first team to progress to the semi-finals on Saturday after winning their first two matches against Zimbabwe and Botswana.
The Mighty Warriors have three points after they won their first match against South Sudan on Saturday.
But Zimbabwe, seeking a place as the best runners-up, are not scoring many goals at this tournament where others teams are hitting huge scorelines.
Only the top team from each group progress to the last four along the best runners-up from the three groups.
Botswana hammered South Sudan 7-0 in Group B opening match.
Mighty Warriors coach Sithetheliwe “Kwinji 15’’ Sibanda believes they still have a chance to sneak into the last four.
“There is still that chance if we win the last game but obviously goals are going to matter even if we win the last group game,” said Sibanda.
The former Mighty Warriors midfielder believes her troops were complacent in their approach against South Sudan and had to score a late goal to avoid a draw.
Mighty Warriors striker Rudo Neshamba got the opener in the 12th minute and South Sudan equalised in the 77th minute. Correctional Queens midfielder Marjoury Nyaumwe got the winner in the 83rd minute to save Zimbabwe the blushes of drawing against the lowly east Africans.
“We told them they should never be complacent in their approach but this mentality is really difficult to get over. We give credit to them because they avoided a draw, so at end of the day we are happy we managed to win,” said Sibanda.
In Saturday’s game, Sibanda rung changes to the starting line-up, benching goalkeeper Cynthia Shonga. She thrust Black Rhinos goalie Precious Mudyiwa, defender Eunice Chibanda and Chirandu into the starting line-up. The coach is likely to retain this team for today’s tie.
“The changes were not influenced by last game’s performance but in a tournament you would want to try out other players because that is the only platform we have before the Africa Women Cup of Nations qualifiers,” said Sibanda.
A week after the COSAFA tournament, the Mighty Warriors plunge into the Nations Cup qualifiers with a match against Eswatini.
With Zimbabwe women’s football inactive for close to two years, Sibanda feels that this tournament is helping them with fitness.
“We have been out of football, so we are trying to prepare for AWCON which is after COSAFA, so we want to build on that,” said Sibanda.
Last year, the Mighty Warriors bowed out of the regional tournament at the group stage without a point or a goal.
And this year the team was hoping to do better at the tournament they have won once in 2011 when they won it on home soil. Zimbabwe are the only other country besides South Africa to have won the regional title.
Online Reporter