Africa-Press – Eswatini. It has been a 540 minutes struggle for the senior men’s national team, Sihlangu, after failing to score in all their six qualifying matches, this year.
Goals have dried up for Dominic Kunene’s charges. They have played six consecutive qualifying matches, which include four Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON) and two 2026 Africa World Cup qualifiers without finding the net. During the recent FIFA break, Sihlangu suffered two defeats at the hands of Libya and Cape Verde in their ‘own backyard’. In this first set of the qualifiers, Cape Verde beat Eswatini 1-0 last Friday, before Cape Verde handed them a 2-0 bashing on Tuesday.
It was only during this year’s Council of Southern Africa Football Associations (COSAFA) senior men’s championships, when Sihlangu scored three goals in the same matches. They were first brought down 1-0 by Botswana. They then defeated Namibia 2-1, and ended their campaign with a 2-1 loss to Bafana Bafana. However, in a post-match interview on Tuesday, Kunene said they needed to address the problem of not scoring with his technical bench and design an exercise that will speed up ways of scoring. He was positive that even the league will play a big part in sharpening the strikers’ brilliance in front of the post.
Notably, since appointment as Sihlangu coach back in 2020, Kunene has led Sihlangu to victory against only one country. It was during the preliminary round of the AFCON Qualifiers when they beat Somalia 3-0 and 2-1 in March, last year. Somalia are the lowest ranked football nation in the African continent. On the world charts, they are also close to basement (196 out of 206).
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