Lesotho tune-up for World Cup qualifiers with Namibia friendly
Lesotho will fine tune their preparations for upcoming 2026 World Cup qualifiers with a friendly match against Namibia in Johannesburg on Saturday evening.
Likuena, as the Lesotho Senior national team, is affectionately known, were last in action in March with back-to-back friendly games against Ethiopia in Addis Ababa.
They are scheduled to face Zimbabwe at Orlando Stadium on june 7th and Rwanda four days later having started their 2026 World Cup campaign with draws against Nigeria and Benin respectively.
Head Coach Leslie Notši is happy with how his players have responded since they assembled with a camp of local based players a fought night ago.
“The preparations have gone well and what is good is that the players are focused, bubbly and rearing to go. Everybody understands why we are here as a group and the foreign based players are also here,” Notši said.
“Every player that has been selected has given his all and we have had to make a decision on which guys we are taking for these crucial matches of the World Cup qualifiers.
“We are optimistic that things will go our way and we are aware that it’s not going to be easy.”
Notši is confident that Namibia, who played at the Africa Cup of Nations earlier this year, will be a good test for his team in preparation for their encounters against the Brave Warriors and Amavubi.
“The training match against Namibia, we are playing a team that recently played at Afcon and their morale is still high in their camp,” Likuena coach said.
“That’s the right time for us to play them to gauge ourselves and we are going to give every member of the squad minutes to play because the upcoming matches against Zimbabwe and Rwanda are going to be very tough.
“We all know that Zimbabwe in our region has been a dominant football country winning COSAFA Cups while most of their players in their squad are based outside their borders, in Europe, South Africa.
“Playing them is going to demand a lot from us. we are looking forward to that because we are still a work in progress and it’s good to play such matches. opponent
“The Rwanda game as well is going to be tricky having seen them play and winning against South Africa. It’s good to play this kind of matches,” he said.
