{"id":20088,"date":"2022-10-01T11:33:34","date_gmt":"2022-10-01T11:33:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/all-news\/weve-a-base-to-build-on-says-motene"},"modified":"2022-10-01T12:17:58","modified_gmt":"2022-10-01T12:17:58","slug":"weve-a-base-to-build-on-says-motene","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/all-news\/weve-a-base-to-build-on-says-motene","title":{"rendered":"We\u2019ve a base to build on, says Motene"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"color: #ff6600\"><strong>Africa-Press &#8211; Lesotho. <\/strong><\/span>The president of the Lesotho Women\u2019s Football Executive Committee, Baholo Motene, has heaped praises on the women\u2019s senior national team, Mehalalitoe.<br \/>\nMehalalitoe are fresh off a promising display at the 2022 COSAFA Women\u2019s Championship in South Africa and Motene said the team\u2019s performances showed growth and all the players need now is more game-time and international experience.<br \/>\nBecause of Lesotho\u2019s previous performances at the regional showpiece, no one had given Mehalalitoe much of a chance but they exceeded all expectations and surprised many.<br \/>\nLesotho beat Eswatini 3-0 in their opener and then put up highly competitive displays against Namibia and Zambia who are headed to the FIFA Women\u2019s World Cup next year.<br \/>\nMotene, a former Lesotho international herself, said Mehalalitoe\u2019s displays have laid the groundwork for the players to return home and continue growing women\u2019s football in the country.<br \/>\nMotene also praised the presence of Lesotho\u2019s six South Africa based players whom she said brought experience and know-how that helped their teammates.<br \/>\nLesotho\u2019s South Africa based players:<br \/>\nLit\u0161eoane Maloro (TUT), Boitumelo Rabale (Mamelodi Sundowns), Boitumelo Nkeane (Inter Madrid), \u2018Mamakhabane Makibinyane (Diepkloof Ladies), Kefuoe Makoa (Inter Madrid), Mosili Motsoeneng (Royal AM)<br \/>\nThe team\u2019s preparations also helped.<br \/>\nUnlike is often the case with Lesotho\u2019s sports teams, Mehalalitoe\u2019s preparations were well prepared and well executed.<br \/>\nMehalalitoe started practicing as early as April by training three times a week with locally based players under coach Pule Khojane.<br \/>\nThe only challenge Khojane and the team faced was getting international friendly games to get ready for the tournament.<br \/>\nUltimately, Lesotho never got the chance to play matches against other countries but the team did source games against clubs in South Africa which proved helpful.<br \/>\n\u201cWhen we were supposed to play against the national teams, the countries we wanted to play against were busy,\u201d Motene said.<br \/>\n\u201cWhen we were approaching the COSAFA (Cup) we agreed with those countries but then we found out that we are in the same group with them,\u201d she added.<br \/>\nMotene is encouraged by the improvements the team showed in Gqeberha where the championship was held.<\/p>\n<p>Previously, Mehalalitoe were not only leaking goals like a sieve in defence, but they were not scoring either.<br \/>\nThey may have only been able to score in one game this year but that alone was a giant step in the right direction for a team that had not scored a goal since September 2018 in a match against Mozambique.<br \/>\n\u201cThe way I saw the coaches, they were right,\u201d Motene said of the team\u2019s preparations.<br \/>\n\u201cThey also got everything they needed with the help of (the Lesotho Football Association), and we had their support until we called our internationals. The arrival of the South African based players boosted our camp because their league is higher, the experience they have helped us that we managed to get three points from Eswatini,\u201d she added.<br \/>\nMotene continued: \u201cZambia is too strong for us, they just came back from (the Women\u2019s Africa Cup of Nations where they finished third), they went to the Olympics and they are now on the journey to the World Cup.<br \/>\nWe haven\u2019t played since 2020. We come back with three points and having conceded nine overall, there is growth we just need more game time.\u201d<br \/>\nMotene said she believes there are more areas of the team to work on and improve, including some tactical work for the coaches.<br \/>\nMehalalitoe head coach Pule Khojane, called a totally different squad to the one that was humiliated in 2020 at the COSAFA Women\u2019s Championship. Although he recalled some players and the squad is still heavily dominated by Lesotho Defence Force (LDF) players, this new Mehalalitoe squad is a young team that now needs to stick together and grow.<\/p>\n<p><strong>For More News And Analysis About <a href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\">Lesotho<\/a> Follow <a href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/\">Africa-Press<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Africa-Press &#8211; Lesotho. The president of the Lesotho Women\u2019s Football Executive Committee, Baholo Motene, has heaped praises on the women\u2019s senior national team, Mehalalitoe. Mehalalitoe are fresh off a promising display at the 2022 COSAFA Women\u2019s Championship in South Africa and Motene said the team\u2019s performances showed growth and all the players need now is [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":20087,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,8,17,16],"tags":[233,246,245,708],"class_list":["post-20088","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-all-news","category-homepage-english","category-sport","category-twitter","tag-africa-press","tag-africa-press-lesotho","tag-lesotho","tag-work"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v26.1 (Yoast SEO v27.0) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>We\u2019ve a base to build on, says Motene - Lesotho<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The president of the Lesotho Women\u2019s Football Executive Committee, Baholo Motene, has heaped praises on the women\u2019s seni ...\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/all-news\/weve-a-base-to-build-on-says-motene\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"We\u2019ve a base to build on, says Motene\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The president of the Lesotho Women\u2019s Football Executive Committee, Baholo Motene, has heaped praises on the women\u2019s seni ...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/all-news\/weve-a-base-to-build-on-says-motene\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Lesotho\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/AfricaPressTunisiaa\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2022-10-01T11:33:34+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2022-10-01T12:17:58+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/sites\/62\/2022\/10\/postQueueImg_8.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1280\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"720\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/all-news\/weve-a-base-to-build-on-says-motene#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/all-news\/weve-a-base-to-build-on-says-motene\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"cfeditoren\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/#\/schema\/person\/068c7ab4e9634ae78ec5d54ec46598bb\"},\"headline\":\"We\u2019ve a base to build on, says Motene\",\"datePublished\":\"2022-10-01T11:33:34+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2022-10-01T12:17:58+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/all-news\/weve-a-base-to-build-on-says-motene\"},\"wordCount\":653,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/all-news\/weve-a-base-to-build-on-says-motene#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/sites\/62\/2022\/10\/postQueueImg_8.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"Africa Press\",\"Africa Press-Lesotho\",\"Lesotho\",\"work\"],\"articleSection\":[\"all news\",\"homepage-english\",\"sport\",\"twitter\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/all-news\/weve-a-base-to-build-on-says-motene#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/all-news\/weve-a-base-to-build-on-says-motene\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/all-news\/weve-a-base-to-build-on-says-motene\",\"name\":\"We\u2019ve a base to build on, says Motene - 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