Tjamela: To be the best, you must beat the best
Lesotho Girls Under-17 coach Tjamela Tjamela is adamant Lesotho can cause a big upset when they play Zambia in the final of the COSAFA Girls Under-17 Championship on Friday.
“Lishoeshoe”, as the Lesotho Girls Under-17 is affectionately known, have been breaking records at the tournament, having become the first national team from the Mountain Kingdom to win a competitive match by a 10-0 margin.
They were ruthless in their opening two games of Group A registering 6-0 and 10-0 victories over Eswatini and Comoros respectively.
The Tjamela Tjamela coached side are the first Lesotho female team to reach the final of an international competition, where they will come up against Zambia at the UJ Stadium.
“The truth is, in our semi-final match against Mozambique, I was happy in the way the girls played and not just because we won the match to re-write the history books of football in Lesotho by reaching the final,” Tjamela said.
“I want to talk about the following that made me happy on the day, the way the girls played according to our plan which was the way we had prepared them in training. Our plan for the day was carried out in the field the way we wanted it to be.
“You will have to understand that in coaching and I’m sure other coaches will agree with me that, as a coach there is nothing as satisfying as when the players perfect what was done in training on the field of play during the match.
The Lishoeshoe coach was also impressed in the way his team was fearless in their approach to eventually get their revenge over Mozambique, who had beaten them 2-0 in the group stage match.
“I loved the winning spirit displayed by the girls, the manner in which they were throwing everything at Mozambique to win the game and they showed that from the word go,” added the Lesotho coach.
“We are now in the final and I don’t think we can say there is a team which has the advantage, but I know others can say Zambia has won this competition before but it’s not like that for me as we are both the teams with most goals in this tournament. For me, there are no favorites going into the final, we met them on the eve of the final and I could see fear and panic in their eyes.
“I can tell that they don’t look at us as just an ordinary team and they are giving us the respect just like we respect them, but what motivates us is that we have been re-writing the history books in the tournament. we not comparing ourselves with anyone breaking our own records.
“We want to get the better of Zambia and to do that, we must beat them and can only do that if we do things right on the day, as they say, if you want to be the best, you must beat the best,” he said.
