Lesotho Girls U-17 coach Tjamela Tjamela will be looking for consistency at the COSAFA Girls U17 Championship that gets underway on Saturday in Namibia after her team reached the final in their debut tournament in 2024.
The Lesotho side nicknamed, Lishoeshoe get their campaign in Group C underway against Botswana on Sunday and will be back in action on Wednesday as they take on Zimbabwe.
They make a return after an impressive debut at the last year tournament in Johannesburg, where Lesotho were ruthless in the group stage registering 10-0 and 6-0 victories over Comoros and Eswatini respectively and became the country’s first female team to reach the final of an international competition.
Tjamela admitted that he is excited to be heading to his second successive tournament in charge team after their heroics in the last year’s competition in Johannesburg.
“I’m very happy that the team has been enrolled and the opportunity to play at the COSAFA tournament again which for me will help our country to produce more stars of tomorrow,” Tjamela said.
“This tournament is a foundation of grooming players for international football and giving them the exposure as young as they are, will help us become very competitive at the senior level.
The Lishoeshoe coach stated that he is aware there are big expectations on his team after they reached the final making their debut tournament in 2024.
“When we compare to last year, I know the team did very well reaching the final as we made our debut at the tournament and expectations are high that we will repeat that feat again or even do more,” the Lishoeshoe coach stated.
“It’s our wish as well but I can only request that, we give this team a chance as well, to show what they can do but we have to understand that 70% percent of the players we had last year are no longer here as they were no-long eligible for this competition due to age and have graduated to the under 20s.
“That’s says, we have a mixture of a few players from our last year’s team and majority of new faces going into their first tournament with the team. So, we can’t compare this year’s team with that of the previous year.
“Our mission in the previous year was to ink our name in the history books and they were able to do that, which says, that team will always be remembered for what they achieved but we had very little time to rebuild our team because the tournament was only played last and this year it has come a bit earlier as it’s being played in May,” he said.