Zimbabwe women's football team will today be following the match between Group D rivals Mozambique and Lesotho with keen interest as they hope for an upset result that could see them progress to the semi-finals of the COSAFA Women's Championship in South Africa.
The Mighty Warriors are coming from a 3-0 win over Lesotho but they will need to wait for the outcome of the match between the two group rivals to ascertain their position.
Only one team will qualify for the semi-finals from this three-team pool and currently, Mozambique holds the aces after beating the Mighty Warriors 1-0 in the first match last week.
The Mozambicans just need to avoid defeat today to sail through as group winners. Zimbabwe on the other hand will be praying for a narrow Mozambique defeat to enhance their chances of making it to the last four.
Lesotho are the only team that is yet to win a match in the group and their chances were reduced significantly by the big loss to Zimbabwe.
Mighty Warriors coach Sithethelwe Sibanda told journalists that they can only wait as they have no control over the result in this decisive match between Mozambique and Lesotho.
"We will hope for the best result for us but at the end of the day this is a game of football," she said.
She was encouraged though by her team's performance in the game against Lesotho. Zimbabwe recovered from the 0-1 defeat to Mozambique and scored three-second half goals without reply against Lesotho to bounce back into contention. "Whatever happens in terms of the outcome of the match, I am happy with the way our team performed against Lesotho. We managed at least to rectify the mistakes from our first game (against Mozambique)," said Sibanda.
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While the Mighty Warriors will be keeping their fingers crossed, the men's team have real work to do in order to stay alive in the CHAN tournament.
The Warriors are down and almost out after falling to a shock 0-3 defeat to Eswatini at the weekend. The largely youthful Zimbabwe side was the home team at Obed Itani Stadium in Botswana on Sunday when they fell to Zdravko Logarusic's side. The second leg of the CHAN qualifiers will be played this Saturday at Mbombela Stadium, in South Africa. This match will determine which team advances to the second preliminary round, where they will face Madagascar between December 20-22 and December 27-29. The triumphant side from the two preliminary qualifying rounds will secure a spot in the CHAN main tournament, set to be hosted by Kenya, Uganda, and Tanzania from February 1-28 next year.
