The Zambia Women’s national team will be hosting Botswana in the first leg of their Tokyo 2020 Olympics third round qualifiers.
preparations for the match have reached an advanceda stage but however Coach Bruce Mwape will some key players. Central defensive pairing of Anita Mulenga and Agness Musesa are ruled out of the tie together with the Kazakhstan based duo of Misozi Zulu and Rachel Kundananji who have not traveled for this match.
Coach Mwape feels the absence of the four players might affect the teams game plan as they are very key to his set up.
“Most of the players are in but others will join the team in November (should they qualify to the fourth round) , the others players are the foreign based we are expecting Barbara to be in (Arrived on Monday afternoon) the other two (Misozi Zulu and Rachael Kundananji) will join the team after the later,” he said.
“This might affect the game plan because those are dependable players and they have now gained enough experience by playing in the COSAFA Tournament and the Womens AFCON and Europe so will miss them,” he added.
Coach Mwape advised his side to take this game seriously despite playing the first leg at home.
“Botswana seems to be a threat after winning south Africa but we know them having faced them twice, in Botswana we beat them so that does not mean will underate them but thats history so will take this game seriously,” he said.
“Playing at home is always an advantage but that does not mean we should relax we just have to be serious and we want to win this game here at home,” he added.
Nkoloma Staduim in Lusaka will host the first leg on Wednesday the 2nd of October 2019 with the return leg scheduled to take place over the weekend in Gaborone.
