Moorosi Tsiane
LIKUENA head coach Thabo Senong says his charges cannot afford to undermine Zimbabwe when the two sides clash on Sunday in the first leg of the last round of CHAN qualifiers in Harare.
Lesotho proceeded to the current stage of the qualifiers after beating South Africa 6-2 on aggregate in the previous round. Likuena beat Bafana Bafana 3-2 at Setsoto Stadium before thumping the neighbours 0-3 away at Dobsonville Stadium in Soweto in August this year.
Zimbabwe on the other hand trounced Mauritius 0-4 away before easing to a 3-0 win at home.
The senior national side leaves the country tomorrow for Harare and Senong says they need a solid game plan to stop the Warriors of Zimbabwe.
“Zimbabwe are a very good team, they beat Mauritius 4-0 away and 3-0 at home, they have good attacking force,” Senong said.
“They will be a tough team to break when we play them this weekend and we cannot afford undermine them. We need to have a good game plan to stop them from scoring.”
Senong said they are also hoping to cause problems for the Zimbabwean defence on Sunday.
He said he was happy that the domestic league has started as it will also help him in selecting players that he believes they can help the team.
“We must threaten them in their box. I believe in the players that we have at the moment and I am certain that they can frustrate the Zimbabweans,” he said.
“I was very happy to finally watch the local league last weekend and there is indeed some promising talent in the country.
“I could tell that the teams and the players are already hungry for the championship. Bantu, Matlama and LCS had good games. Liphakoe were also impressive although they lost the game.
“I am looking forward to watching a lot of local matches as this will help me to get to know other players better. We have tried to include new additions (Phafa Tšosane, Tšeliso Botsane and Bokang Sello) in the team to strengthen our squad going into the weekend tie.
“We are in a building process and we can only do that by bringing in the right players into the setup, so we tried to stabilise the defence and the frontline,” Senong said.
The reverse fixture will be played at Setsoto Stadium on 18 October 2019.
If Likuena beat Zimbabwe over two legs, then they will earn their debut appearance in the CHAN tournament to be hosted by Cameroun in January and February 2020.
