The match will take place at the Accra Sports Stadium in Ghana with Niger as the home team.<\/p>\n
Lesotho coach Bob Mafoso welcomed the test and stated that he is happy to go into the clash with a clean bill of health in his camp.<\/p>\n
“We have had two training sessions since arriving in Ghana and we should consider ourselves lucky that there are no injuries or any health issues,” Mafoso told the press conference.<\/p>\n
“That itself makes our preparation easier. I should say that we are happy with our preparations, and we think we are ready for the game.”<\/p>\n
Speaking about their opponents, Mafoso said Niger are not a closed book, and he expects an interesting encounter against the Mena who sit 33 places above Likuena in the FIFA rankings.<\/p>\n
“Do we know about the Niger national team? Yes, we do. In today’s world, nothing is hidden. We know where their players ply their trade and we know Niger is a country of 28 million people.<\/p>\n
“So how do we prepare? We also know that they are ranked above us in football and that means they have won more games than us maybe in the past five years.<\/p>\n
“It makes it an interesting game because it’s not the highest-ranked national teams of this continent, which makes it tricky because the gap is not huge between the two teams. In terms of getting footage, it wasn’t easy, but we have one or two games, and we have an idea of who we are playing against.”<\/p>\n
Niger coach Nabil Neghiz, who has faced Lesotho before as interim coach of Algeria, echoed similar sentiments, saying his team and Lesotho are the underdogs of the group with all eyes on Morocco and Gabon.<\/p>\n
“Of course, I have faced Lesotho before while in charge of Algeria and they are a very good team, especially in their backyard, as we needed late goals with Algeria then to win 3-1.<\/p>\n
“I saw them in the 2026 World Cup Qualifiers when they beat Zimbabwe and gave Nigeria a tough game. They are a good side. I can say Morocco and Gabon are the favourites of this group and Lesotho and Niger are the underdogs that you can say are at the same level,” he said.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Lesotho will kick-start their TotalEnergies CAF Africa Cup of Nations PAMOJA 2027 Qualifiers with a Group A opening showdown against Niger in Accra on Friday afternoon. The match will take place at the Accra Sports Stadium in Ghana with Niger as the home team. Lesotho coach Bob Mafoso welcomed the test and stated that he…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5989,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5988","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\n