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Ellina Mhlanga Sports Reporter
THE Mighty Warriors continued with their dominance in the Unity Day Challenge Cup on Saturday when they dismissed Lesotho 8-0 to defend their title at Rufaro.
The match was part of their preparations for next year’s African Women Championships qualifiers starting in February.
The senior women national team came into the game as the favourites having beaten Lesotho 5-1 and 6-1 in two friendly matches in Maseru more than a month ago.

And on Saturday the Mighty Warriors continued with their dominance over the visitors when they put up a spirited performance to win the title for the third consecutive year.

The Unity Day Challenge Cup has become an annual tournament since 2010.
The Mighty Warriors played South Africa in the first edition and lost.

The following year they played Banyana Banyana again and won.
Last year they clashed with Botswana and again emerged the winners.

Mighty Warriors assistant coach, Yohannes Chikaola, said they were happy with the way the team played as they intensify their preparations for the African Women Championship qualifiers but noted there were some areas that still need attention.

“What I observed is we had a good team against our opponents. Our opponents were much weaker than us,” said Chikaola.
“We wanted to see if we can move the ball around from the midfield to the strikers. We also wanted to see ball rotation between the defence and the midfield. We noticed that we were a bit jittery in the midfield and at the back.

“Our two centre backs were jittery at the beginning of the game, they were not comfortable but in the second half we managed to sort it out. If (Lesotho) was a good team they could have scored three goals in the first half.”

However, Chikaola said the team was improving with each game they were playing and is optimistic of a better performance when they begin their quest to qualify for the African Championships.

“We are getting there because we played much better especially considering that the girls have not been playing in the league this year.
“We were quite impressed with their performance, we are getting somewhere. There is light at the end of the tunnel, if we keep working hard we will continue to improve,” said Chikaola.

Zimbabwe Women Football chairperson, Mavis Gumbo, said there has been a marked improvement since the revival of the team in 2010 when she took over the running of the women’s game.

However, she noted that the success of the team can only be measured when they qualify for the African Women Championships. Gumbo indicated that they wanted to have a few more friendly matches before the qualifiers kick off as the opening match will be crucial for the team.

“Definitely we are planning to have two to three international friendly matches because that will be a crucial game for us.
“This improvement can only be measured when we qualify for the African Women Championships,” said Gumbo. Zimbabwe meets Botswana in the first round in February.