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Rosemary Mugadza

Ellina Mhlanga Sports Reporter
THE senior women’s national soccer team coach Rosemary Mugadza says they still have some work to do ahead of the African Women Championships qualifiers starting next month.
The Mighty Warriors were in Egypt since Monday for two international friendly matches against the North Africans as part of their preparations for the championships qualifiers.

They lost the first match 2-3 to Egypt last Wednesday before they redeemed themselves on Saturday when they won 2-1 with their goals coming from Emmaculate Msipa and Marjory Nyaumwe.

The team is expected to regroup on February 1 for their final preparations and Mugadza said there has been some improvement in the team but they still need to fine-tune their team.

“We hope to regroup on February 1 for our preparations for the game against Botswana. We will be going straight to Botswana from that camp. I think we need to work on the whole team starting from the goalkeeping department.

“Our defence has improved as well as the midfield but our strike-force need to work extra hard. That’s the area we need to make sure is in good shape by the time we play Botswana and I hope when we get into camp more of our drills will be concentrated more on the strikers and everything that we will do will be on scoring,” said Mugadza.

Mugadza said although the team lost one of their matches in Egypt the fact that they won the other one will boost the team’s confidence ahead of their first qualifying game.

“I think it’s a positive start ahead of the game against Botswana. I think we will just have a few days off and then we regroup as a team because we still feel as the technical team that we need to work extra hard with the girls for them to be psyched up for the Botswana game,” Mugadza added.

The Mighty Warriors coach also said the matches were a platform for the players to prove themselves and noted that she is happy to have young players such as Mavis Chirandu joining the team. Chirandu had a good day on Saturday creating both goals for Zimbabwe.

“For Mavis she is one of the players from the Under-20 team and we hope she will carry the experience she is gaining from the senior team to the Under-20s.

“As you know that we are hosting the Zone Six this year, this is exactly what we need as a national team to have girls from the Under-20 team to come and do duty with us as well as do the duty with the Under-20s,” said Mugadza.

Mugadza said she is hopeful her charges will make it to the championships as she noted that she has been there before as part of the team that qualified in 2000, 2002 and in 2004 when she was the assistant coach of the Mighty Warriors.

“I hope this the time to redeem ourselves from the old Mighty Warriors to the new Mighty Warriors we have now. The girls we have now are very skilful and very ambitious and I have always said to them they should at least exceed above what I have achieved as a player. And I think I have given them that challenge to them and they have to prove it right,” said Mugadza

Zimbabwe will start their campaign in the qualifiers away in Botswana on the weekend of February 14 to 16 and the return leg will be played two weeks later.

If they manage to win against Botswana they will then play the winner of the match between Zambia and Tanzania between May and June.

The Championships will be staged in Namibia in October and the top three countries will progress to the World Cups next year in Canada.
The Mighty Warriors arrived back home yesterday.