Mikia Kalati MASERU
— Lesotho’s senior national soccer team, Likuena, will host Namibia in an
international friendly match later this month. The
development was confirmed by the Lesotho Football Association’s (Lefa) acting
chief executive officer, Mokhosi Mohapi, on Friday. He
told the Sunday Express that the match against the Brave Warriors is
part of Likuena’s training programme aimed at helping the team prepare for next
year’s 2014 World Cup qualifiers. “We
are yet to finalise the dates of the match with the Namibian Football Association,
but our team will be engaged in a number of friendly matches before the World
Cup games,” Mohapi said. Likuena
last month played in the tri-nations tournament held in Molepole, Botswana.
They lost the opening match 2-3 to Zimbabwe and managed to get a goalless draw
against the home side in the last match.
The
Lesotho team will host African champions Zambia at Setsoto Stadium on March 22
next year. Sudan
are currently on top of Group D, ahead of Ghana in second place on three points
and Zambia in third also on three points while Lesotho are rooted at the bottom
with a single point after two matches. Meanwhile,
Likuena coach Leslie Notsi said the encounter against Namibia will be very
helpful to some of his new faces in the squad. “It
is always important to play as many friendly matches as we can to keep
improving,” Notsi said. “We
had a promising performance in the recent Botswana tri-nations tournament, and
we have to build from that and improve.” He
added: “I have made a request to meet with the coaches of the premier league
teams, as a way of finding a solution to our troubled soccer standards.” He
said the fact that Matlama midfielder Pali Tšalong was the premier league top
goal scorer with eight goals last season, says a lot about the problems facing
domestic
football. “We need to join hands
and address the problem from club level and stop blaming national team
coaches,” he said.
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