Rhinos Queens engage psychologists

Tadious Manyepo Sports Reporter

BLACK RHINOS Queens have engaged psychologists to help players keep focus ahead of their participation in the inaugural CAF Women’s Champions League zonal football qualifiers later this month.

The CAF Women’s Champions league will have a final tournament pitting eight teams from all the continental zones in Cairo, Egypt in December.

And the Cosafa zonal qualifiers are scheduled to run between August 26 and September 4 with Black Rhinos Queens being one of the seven teams chasing for the sole ticket to represent this region in Egypt.

The Zimbabwe representatives are in Group B together with Zambian giants Green Buffaloes and Tura Magic of Namibia.

Two teams from this group will progress to the semi-finals.

With just over two weeks before the zonal tournament kicks off, Black Rhinos Queens cannot train after they saw their application for a special waiver being quashed due to the rising Covid-19 cases.

And the army side have decided to enlist the services of psychologists as they bid to keep their players focused ahead of the crucial tournament.

The club’s acting secretary-general Adnico Thilli said his team has engaged psychologists to help the players who have been training at home alone for the past six weeks.

“We haven’t been cleared to start training as a team and we have had to find ways of keeping fit both physically and mentally while awaiting the clearance,” said Thilli.

“The players have been following individual programmes availed to them by the coaches and they continue to do so in the meantime.

“But we then realised they could end up losing focus and that’s when we decided to enlist psychological experts to help the players out.

“We have combined our own psychologists from the army and those from the civilian sector. That way, we believe we can be able to keep the girls’ mental strength in check.

“Physically it is very difficult to keep the players up there without them training as a group.

“We haven’t been playing football for almost two years now and you need all your players to be fit both physically and mentally.

“We know it’s difficult to attain the physical condition which the players need and apparently the issue of mental health sets in.

“The players haven’t seen action for close to two years and you know how much that affects the their mental aspect.

“The psychologists we have engaged are doing well and you can actually see that the players are reacting well.

“Football is physical as much as it is mental.

“We hope that the Covid-19 cases fall and are allowed to participate at the zonal qualifiers.

“We know it’s going to be a challenge at the competition but we are Black Rhinos Queens and we certainly want to participate at the CAF Women’s Champions league in Egypt. That means we will have to play top, top football at the zonal competition.”

Rhinos Queens last played competitive football when they won their tenth league championship in 2019.

The team has been on a drive to reinforce their squad adding two national team players Marjoury Nyaumwe and Rudo Neshamba on loan from Cyclone Queens and Harare City respectively.

 

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