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Tadious Manyepo
ZIMBABWE national senior women’s side, the Mighty Warriors, are looking to roll over Lesotho in their must-win final group match and then wait until Tuesday for their fate at the ongoing COSAFA Women’s Championship in Gqeberha, South Africa.
The Sithethelelwe “Kwinji 15” Sibanda girls are in Group D alongside Lesotho and Mozambique, from which only pool leaders will progress to the semi-finals.
And they stand on shaky surface after losing their opener 1-0 against Mozambique on Thursday.
That means any result other than a solid win against Lesotho will be calamitous to their progress and they will promptly return home.
A win might not be enough if Mozambique can avoid defeat against Lesotho on Tuesday, in which case they will win the group.
The Mighty Warriors have to do their part and hope for the best from the Lesotho/Mozambique duel.
They were architects of their predicament after they allowed Mozambique to steal the points even after thoroughly outplaying them at the Isaac Wolfson Stadium last Thursday.
And Sibanda expects her squad to find solutions to the problems they will face against Lesotho this afternoon.
She knows pretty well even the slightest of missteps will see them catching the earliest possible flight to Harare.
And the Mighty Warriors gaffer spoke with confidence at the conclusion of her team’s workout yesterday.
Her squad’s play in the final third was far from effective and she reckons that it is an area which should click and give them the result they desire this afternoon.
“We are looking forward to the match against Lesotho.
“Going into the match, we need to address our weaknesses from the first match which had to do with our finishing,” said Sibanda.
“We were terrible in front of goal and we need to fix that and be able to take our chances. At the end of the day, a tournament requires to win games and you have to score to do that.
“We have tried to address that during training and, hopefully, this time around we will be better in terms of our finishing.”
Sibanda said they needed to be solid at the back as they conceded a rather soft goal that doomed their campaign in the opener against Mozambique.
“Looking at our play, during the previous game, we did very well and only conceded a very silly goal,” she said.
“I think from those multiple chances that we created, we could have done better. I am just hopeful that in the next match, which is against Lesotho, we will do better.
“We spent the last days addressing our finishing weaknesses.”
It will be disappointing if Zimbabwe end up having to crash out of the 14-team annual regional contest at the group stage after they announced their return with an impressive showing last year.
Zimbabwe made a rebound from a year-long FIFA suspension at the meet last year in Gauteng and they showed a lot of zeal as if to cover for lost ground, managing to reach the semi-finals under Shadreck Mlauzi.
With better organisation and preparation this time around, they were expected to surpass that semi-final hurdle and possibly win the COSAFA trophy for the first time since 2011.
They can never be written off though, but they must do their part by beating Lesotho comprehensively then keep their fingers crossed for the next 48 hours.
Online Reporter