From the Secretary General’s Desk
Appointment of Coach Veselin Jelusic
Following the resignation of the then Lesotho National Teams Head Coach, Mr. Thabo Senong in June 2021, the Lesotho Football Association’s leadership resolved to engage a replacement for Mr. Senong just before the start of the 2023 CAF AFCON. Once the position was advertised the Association was inundated with a lot of candidate applicants. The process went on and in the end Mr. Veselin Jelusic was engaged. Why Mr. Jelusic? Mr. Jelusic comes with an impressive football persona and pedigree. From his days at the Botswana Football Association where he managed to qualify the Botswana National Team to an AFCON and what he managed to achieve at Bloemfontein Celtic put him as a favourite to the position. The Leadership of LeFA wanted someone who understood the nature and culture of the local players.
Yes, indeed we can say that Likuena has had an impressive start under the new mentor. One will understand that the preliminary qualifier match against the Seychelles was a tricky encounter due to many reasons. Firstly, had Likuena lost the match, it would have been a football politics disaster as you will have seen the reaction of most of the countries that lost out in qualification for either the World Cup or the AFCON group qualifiers. The fans and media have accused leadership with all sorts of wrongdoings due to the failure to advance to the World Cup or the group stages of the AFCON. Secondly, for the Coach and the Association, losing to Seychelles would mean that the appointment of the new Coach would have been viewed as the biggest football flop of our days. I think Mr. Jelusic has ushered in a new era, one where no player is guaranteed a position in the team. Everyone must fight for their place.
Playing at Dobsonville Stadium in South Africa
Having to play our home matches in South Africa has been unavoidable. When CAF embarked on setting up a criterion for those facilities where the A International matches would be played some of us knew that the facilities in the Kingdom of Lesotho would not make it. We saw several Clubs in the CAF Interclub competitions and some national teams having had to play their official matches on foreign soil, it became clear that Likuena would, fall in the same category. Once it was clear that Likuena would play in South Africa, it was not difficult for the LeFA leadership to choose the Dobsonville Stadium in Soweto. You will remember that Lesotho has played against South Africa at the u20 level and won, it again played against Bafana Bafana in the CHAN competition and knocked out Bafana Bafana convincingly at the Dobsonville Stadium. It was these results that made the decision to play at the Dobsonville Stadium an easy one, we had the belief that we would be successful at the same facility.
Bumper year of international matches
This year there will be several international matches to be played at both the National Teams level and the Clubs. In a months’ time, Likuena will begin its CAF Qualifiers and in less than a month after the AFCON Qualifiers Likuena will compete in the COSAFA Cup. In September the next wave of AFCON Qualifiers will be played. This surely calls for depth in the squad. Then in July Matlama which set to be crowned as the champions of Lesotho will play its CAF Champions League matches. It is highly probable that the Women teams will also take part in the COSAFA Women’s Cup as well as the AUSC Games later in the year. So yes, 2022 looks to be a very busy year.
Long football Season due to Covid-19 disruptions
When you talk about the current season, ooh yes this has been the longest season ever, I mean two calendar years to complete one season is unheard of. I guess Lesotho should be holding the record of having the longest season. However, one needs to understand that there was not much that we could have done. The Covid-19 pandemic has forced many industries to do things differently and football was not exempted from the melee. This phenomenon has led to many teams having to endure massive financial strain. The sooner the season ends the better so that teams can focus on rebuilding for the new season.
Support for Women Football
As part of the Lesotho Football Association’s mandate of developing football in the Kingdom of Lesotho, the Lesotho Football Association has resolved to invest heavily on women football. For many years women football had been somehow denied the kind of attention that it deserved. Since the election of the new Committee and President, attention has been directed to investing significantly on women football.
Just the other day we bought equipment for eighty-one women football clubs to help them to be able to honour their league obligations. This is the start of good things to come for women football in the Kingdom of Lesotho.
