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Sithethelelwe Sibanda

Grace Chingoma, Harare Bureau
ZIMBABWE national women’s soccer technical team has presented their 2018 programme to Zifa as they brace up for a busy year which kicks off with the Africa Women’s Cup of Nations qualifiers.

The games will culminate into the finals which would be staged in Ghana in November.

Crucially for the teams that will qualify for the bi-annual tournament is that this edition presents an opportunity to the top three teams at the finals to qualify for next year’s Fifa Women’s World Cup scheduled for France.

And the Mighty Warriors coach Sithethelelwe “Kwinji 15” Sibanda has submitted her programme to her principal.

It has been four months since the team last kicked a ball during the Cosafa tournament in Bulawayo where the hosts lost to South Africa in the final.

Sibanda is hoping that the outline which includes some international friendly games should help shake off the rust after a long lay-off by the women.

The Mighty Warriors have also been accorded more time to get their preparations underway with the moving of the Nations Cup first round fixtures from February 24 to 26 and the reverse tie a week later, to April.

The dates were modified to allow the staging of the upcoming Women’s football symposium in Morroco in March.

“I have submitted a proposal for the qualifiers and we are waiting for the approval. It has been a while since the players were in action, so would want some good warm up matches so that we can work out on a number of areas before our first competitive match.

“We are working on something for the national team but also hope that some of the teams in the domestic league will begin their pre-season by end of month so that players quickly get in shape.

“It is a blessing in disguise that the qualifiers were moved as February was going to be a little bit too early for us and difficult.

“But by April, I am sure most of our players would be very active at their clubs which should greatly help us when we camp for the national team.

Remember the league got suspended before it was finished so some of our players have been inactive since we played the Cosafa final on 24 September.

“You know when working with girls such is long period and we will be missing some of the players that have been in the national team when we finally regroup,” said Sibanda.