MASERU — Lesotho’s Under-17 national team, Bahlabani, left the country yesterday for Maputo to face Mozambique in the return leg of a CAF Under-17 Youth Championship qualifier on Sunday.
Bahlabani won the first leg 3-1 at Setsoto Stadium a fortnight ago.
If they win, Lesotho will face Cameroon in the next qualifying stage.
Bahlabani team manager Thabo Pule, however, complained Lesotho’s preparations for the Maputo match had been hampered by the unavailability of most of the players for morning training sessions.
All of the Under-17 players are at school and are also preparing for mid-year examinations.
Pule said they would have wanted to hold morning training sessions since camp started on Monday but could not do so because the players were at school.
“Our problem is that we could not have training sessions in the mornings and we were only training together as a team in the afternoons,” Pule told the Lesotho Times before Bahlabani left the country.
“All the players are students and they have to go to school in the mornings.”
Despite that setback, Pule was confident Bahlabani would pull through in Maputo.
“The camp has not been useful in terms of training,” he said.
“But we are glad that we’ve been taking advantage of the situation by making sure players do not take the return match for granted just because they won the first leg.”
Bahlabani are expected to arrive in Maputo this morning and start training in the afternoon.
