Botswana’s secret to impressive WAFCON debut
Botswana’s preparations ahead of the TotalEnergies CAF Women’s Afcon are paying off. Gaoletlhoo Nkutlwisang’s side had a string of training camps as soon as the team qualified for the tournament and the work the team put in during the preparations is producing the results for the debutants.
The Mares are the only debutants to have qualified for the knockout stages of the tournament hosted in Morocco, a great achievement for the side from the Cosafa region.
However their progress cannot only be attributed to the work put in just ahead of the competition. The Mares have been building a solid team and have been improving over the years. Eliminating Banyana Banyana from the Olympic Games qualifiers was one of the biggest signs that the team could no longer be considered as whipping girls. Taking out Banyana from the Tokyo Olympics qualifiers was followed with a stellar performance at the 2019 edition of the Cosafa Women’s Championship which saw them go home with a silver medal and having beaten a stronger Zambia in the semis.
Botswana’s growth in performance feat continued with the Wafcon qualifiers as well, taking out Zimbabwe who had been dominant over the Mares over the years.
𝐀 𝐒𝐄𝐍𝐒𝐀𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍𝐀𝐋 𝐒𝐓𝐑𝐈𝐊𝐄! 💥#TeamBotswana’s Refilwe Tholakele wins our Goal Of The Day! ⚽️#TotalEnergiesWAFCON2022 | #EmpoweringOurGame | @1xBet_Eng pic.twitter.com/ZMhky31gGM
— #TotalEnergiesWAFCON2022 (@CAFwomen) July 4, 2022
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Botswana’s performance in the group stages was nothing short of impressive, as debutants it would have been expected that they would lose by a considerable amount of goals against the defending champions, Nigeria but they maintained a fighting spirit and the 152 ranked side in the world and 31st on the continent behind the Super Falcons put up a good fight.
Players like Refiloe Tholakele, Lesego Radiankayo, Keitumetse Dithebe and goalkeeper Sedilame Boseja have been leading the team with confidence and cool heads which will be important when they play hosts Morocco in the quarterfinals. The Mares can still rely on their underdog tag in this match as the hosts will be put under pressure by home expectations to stay in the competition to book a place in the Fifa Women’s World Cup.
The trio have all scored for Botswana and they will be expected to find the goals again since they only scored in the opening game against Burundi.