In just a few days' time, the journey to crowing the CAF Women's Champions League, Cote d'Ivoire 2023 champions officially begins in Korhogo, Cote d'Ivoire.
The third edition of Africa's premier women's club football gets underway between 05 - 19 November, where eight clubs from across the continent will battle it out for the prestigious title of being crowned Queens of African women's club football.
Winners of the inaugural edition (2021), Mamelodi Sundowns are on a serious mission of reclaiming the title they lost to Morocco's AS Far.
This is according to their coach, Jerry Tshabalala who says the mission in Cote d'Ivoire is clear, and it is nothing else but to reclaim continental glory - in reference to the title they surrendered to the Moroccan champions.
Tshabalala, who masterminded the historic 2021 achievement in Egypt spoke to CAFOnline ahead of their trip to the western end of the continent, where they have been drawn in a tricky Group A consisting of tournament hosts, Athletic FC d'Abidjan, SC Casablanca of Morocco as well as Tanzania's JKT Queens.
Coach, congratulations on your qualification to the CAF Women's Champions League. How does it feel to be playing in your third consecutive CAF Women's Champions League?
It's very exciting to find ourselves in the CAF Women's Champions League for the third time in a row. It's always our goal to try and dominate African woman's football and the good thing about it is the fact that we still share the same vision of the previous President of the club. He made it clear that he wants my Mamelodi Sundowns to dominate African football, so we are happy that we still on the same vision.
You've been drawn in a tricky group that consists of the hosts, Athletico FC d'Abidjan, SC Casablanca and JKT Queens - what do you make of your chances?
A very tricky group that we find ourselves in, where we would be playing against SC Casablanca from Morocco, JKT Queens from Tanzania and the hosts so it's not going to be an easy group for us.
We we're very fortunate that we've managed to see how this SC Casablanca team from Morocco play and JKT Queens from Tanzania, so it has given us a bit of a light in terms of what to expect from them.
I believe we stand a good chance in terms of going out of the groups and going through to the to the semis with the kind of players that we acquired this year. We have showed that we want to achieve, we want to conquer, more especially in Africa. So as much as our group it's tricky, we also have a very good side that can withstand the trickiness of the group stages.
Sundowns' success on the continent also filtered into to the national team. How important are such continental competitions for international experience?
Such tournaments are very important. It's good to see that as a club, we are contributing towards the success of our national team. When you look in terms of how the national team did during the FIFA Women's World Cup, we made history by going into the into the last 16 and when you look at the number of players from Mamelodi Sundowns, we had about six players there. That shows that as a club, we're doing something very good for the nation and we encourage other teams to come to the party in terms of providing quality players to our national team.
These continental competitions are very important because when players are used to playing in these continental competitions, when they go out there and represent the national team it doesn't become something new for them but it's something that they're used to.
They learn how to handle the pressure when they meet other African countries.
Sundowns is one of the favourites of the competition, do you see yourself reclaiming your title?
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As much as people say we are favourites, I don't think it puts us under too much pressure. For this this competition, we really want to go back there and reclaim the glory!
We just want to prove that we are still one of the best teams on the continent. It wasn't a fluke for us to win the inaugural competition. In every competition that we go into, we go in there to win it. We are not just going there to test the waters, but we want to go out there and win this competition, which is very important for us as a team.
What are your personal goals for this tournament?
Personal goal for this tournament has to be one thing and it's for us to win it - nothing else. We just want to win this tournament and nothing else.
The CAF Women's Champions League, Cote d'Ivoire 2023 will be hosted in Korhogo and San Pedro, Cote d'Ivoire.
