Punchless Zebras Worry Tshosane

FREDERICK KEBADIRETSE

After watching his side draw 0-0 with Zambia in Molepolole in an international friendly on Saturday, the coach said he has done everything to try and make the team to score goals, but no such thing is happening. The national team has a long-standing goal drought often blamed on defensive tactics employed by coaches. Tshosane said he tries to get all the top strikers in the country and spends a lot of time working on goal scoring, but come match day, the players fail to deliver.
“Look, today (Saturday) we created a couple of chances but the players as always failed to finish. I actually do not know what is the problem now because the technical team tried its best to solve the goal scoring problem,” he lamented. He said most strikers play well and score a lot of goals at club level but they fail to deliver at the national team. The Zebras start the campaign to qualify for the 2012 AFCON away to Tunisia this weekend before hosting Chad two weeks later.
Besides lack of goals, Tshosane’s team has been hit by injuries to key players. The injuries have been attributed to the bumpy Lekidi pitch the squad uses for training. Former Bay United winger, Pontsho Moloi, Township Rollers’ Onalethata Tshekiso and Mochudi Centre Chiefs’ defender, Tshepo ‘Talk Talk’ Motlhabankwe, were all ruled out of the Saturday match against Zambia due to injury.
Tshosane said he hopes the injured players will recover in time to make the team for Tunisia. The Cape Town Santos’ duo of Mogogi Gabonamong and Boitumelo Mafoko did not join the team. Mafoko is still recovering from an injury he sustained during the season while Gabonamong has unresolved issues with the Botswana Football Association (BFA).
Dipsy Selolwane of SuperSport United had not linked up with the national team by Saturday as he was involved in pre-season training at his new South African club.
The only foreign-based players in the team is speedy Orlando Pirates’ winger Phenyo Mongala and Cape Town Santos’ striker Jerome Ramatlhakwane. The striker has been sidelined by injury at his club and looked rusty throughout the Saturday game.
Tshosane said the unavailability of some foreign-based players hampered his plans, as the squad does not have enough time to gel before the start of the qualifiers. He acknowledged that they did not prepare well for the qualifiers as they failed to play enough friendly matches. “Obviously we did not prepare enough, we would have liked to have more friendly games with tougher opponents but it was not to be as most teams were already engaged,” he said.
He said the belated addition of Togo to their group has a hand in cutting short their preparations, as they had to accommodate more games and start the qualifiers earlier than the rest. He said they would have liked to sharpen the players’ fitness ahead of the qualifiers, but this has not been possible. “We had planned to use the high performance centre in Pretoria but they turned us down at the last minute,” Tshosane said.
“We are rated low in our group and therefore we should always double our efforts when we prepare,” he added. He said despite all the challenges, they will use the resources they have to get positive results.