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IN about a month’s time, the Mighty Warriors will plunge into their first African Women Cup of Nations finals’ group game against neighbours South Africa at the Stade Ahmadou Ahidjo in Yaounde, Cameroon.It will be a high-profile showdown between the two countries that represented the continent at the 2016 Olympic Games in Brazil where they both crashed out in the group stages without a win to their credit.

The success of the Mighty Warriors and Bafana Bafana, in becoming the only African nations who took part at the Olympics Games in Brazil, was viewed as a monumental shift in terms of women football on the continent which until then had been dominated by the West African giants.

Zimbabwe’s Mighty Warriors knocked out a highly-rated Cameroon side which had represented the continent at the World Cup in Canada and, although they lost all their three matches in Brazil, the Mighty Warriors received a lot of praise for the way they performed against the heavyweights of women football on the globe as they scored in all their three matches.

Coach Shadreck Mlauzi even believes that his team would have done better had they been given adequate preparations for the Rio Games, including international friendly matches against some of the best teams in the world where the coaching department would have picked out some of their shortcomings as they prepared for the real battles in Brazil.

Instead, the Mighty Warriors only played one friendly international, when they were already in Brazil, when they took on China and, with only a few days before their first game, the technical team did not have the time to make the necessary adjustments that could have made a difference to their side.

While we always believed that the Olympic Games were a hurdle too high for the Mighty Warriors to make a big impression like qualifying for the knockout stages of the tournament given this was our first appearance at this tourney, we feel our national team is now strong enough to fight for honours on the continent.

For them to beat Cameroon, as they did in the final qualifier for the Olympics, illustrates that they have come of age and we challenge them to fight for honours, including trying to win the African Women Cup of Nations in Cameroon next month.

But the Mighty Warriors’ quest for success in Cameroon could be pegged back by inadequate preparations because, with just a month to go before they play their first game in Yaounde, there has been little to suggest that we have a proper programme that will see our team getting into camp to enable the coaches to start working on combinations and the shortcomings they could pick along the way.

Clearly, the Mighty Warriors are crying out for, at least, three international friendlies because it’s only in the intense matches, against quality opposition, where our coaches can work on the right combinations and fine-tune the areas where we could be coming short.

We believe we can hold our own against Banyana Banyana, the first team that we will meet in Yaounde, we can beat Egypt — the team we defeated in a friendly international in Harare recently and whom we will meet in our second game — and we can also do well against Cameroon after we eliminated them from the Olympic Games qualifiers.

But, for us to punch above our weight and realise our dreams of even winning the tournament, we need to do more on the preparations front and we are happy that this week the Mighty Warriors received just the tonic they needed ahead of their African Women Cup of Nations campaign with Government stepping in to ensure there is funding for them ahead of their departure for Cameroon.

In the week when the country celebrated the International Day of the Girl Child, Government and the corporate sector came together to revive the Mighty Warriors preparations for the tournament scheduled to run from November 19 to December 5.

We are happy to see Sport and Recreation Minister, Makhosini Hlongwane, taking a leading role in the resource mobilisation for the Mighty Warriors after he brought Government together with some of the corporate executives in this country in a noble cause to raise funding for the team.

The setting up of a steering committee, which is expected to start work urgently given the Mighty Warriors are still to get into camp owing to limited resources, is just a step in the right direction.Hlongwane told guests the Mighty Warriors require $300 000 to cover all expenses from camping, preparations, air fares and allowances.

“Our sport seems to be rising in terms of profile on the back of successes of women that is true of hockey which is going to participate in Chile next month in the World Cup finals, that is true of netball who are champions on the African continent that is true of women’s football, following their qualification for the Olympics Games,” said the Minister.

“With resources available the team is supposed to be in camp and playing some friendly matches. We wanted a scenario where they go and camp in Ghana a week before the tournament begins, but all that can only happen when there is money.”The Mighty Warriors have done us proud and they deserve all the support we can give them.