Mighty Warriors face Botswana hurdle

Harare Bureau
ZIMBABWE Women Football chairperson Mavis Gumbo says they are leaving no stone unturned in their preparations for the African Women Championships qualifiers starting early next year.
The senior women national team will start their campaign against Botswana on February 14 and they have to win the match to keep their hopes of qualifying for the championships alive.

If they manage to beat Botswana they will then meet the winner between Zambia and Tanzania in the last qualifying round and the winners will progress to the main event scheduled for October in Namibia.

Gumbo said they are hoping to have a few more friendly matches for the team as noted that they still need to work on the fitness level of the players. The team is expected to take a short break and resume camp on January 3.

“First of all the fitness level is still lacking, it’s not what we want. We are looking forward to having two to three international friendly matches with good teams before we start our campaign against Botswana in February if things go according to plan. It’s a do or die game (against Botswana), we need to win that game,” said Gumbo.

The women football boss said besides the friendly matches they are also going to have the NetOne knockout tournament featuring the league clubs and they are hoping it will help keep the players active.

“We have the NetOne knockout tournament for the girl child.  It’s starting in January. And as you know our league has not been running so it will help in terms of fitness and to keep the players busy because the players for the national team come from those clubs. It will help in a big way,” said Gumbo.

She said they are looking at teams that are in the top 10 so that they get the challenge they require ahead of their match against Botswana.

“We are ranked number nine in Africa so we are targeting those that are in the top 10 who are better than us depending on who will respond early. We wanted to have the matches at least by mid January, end of January and then early February since our match against Botswana is February 14,” said Gumbo.

The Mighty Warriors have been involved in a number of friendly matches so far and last Saturday they played Lesotho in the Unity Day Challenge Cup with the match also being used as part of their preparations.