{"id":64783,"date":"2025-11-30T20:55:40","date_gmt":"2025-11-30T20:55:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/all-news\/bafana-assistant-coach-speaks-on-lesotho-football"},"modified":"2025-11-30T20:58:20","modified_gmt":"2025-11-30T20:58:20","slug":"bafana-assistant-coach-speaks-on-lesotho-football","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/all-news\/bafana-assistant-coach-speaks-on-lesotho-football","title":{"rendered":"Bafana assistant coach speaks on Lesotho football"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"color: #ff6600\"><strong>Africa-Press &#8211; Lesotho. <\/strong><\/span>SOUTH Africa\u2019s national soccer team assistant coach, Helman \u201cMidnight Express\u201d Mkhalele, has said he would like to see Lesotho grow into a stronger football nation.<\/p>\n<p>He said he believes structured exchange programmes between Lesotho and South Africa are the right path to achieving that.<\/p>\n<p>Mkhalele is among the coaches currently undertaking the CAF A-Diploma Licence course organised by the Lesotho Football Association (LeFA).<\/p>\n<p>Speaking to the media on the sidelines of the course this week, he said he chose to upgrade his coaching credentials in Lesotho to keep pace with the rapid evolution of modern football. He emphasised that his decision was also influenced by the cordial relations between the two countries.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cLesotho and South Africa have good relations as countries; hence we have a number of South African coaches working in Lesotho,\u201d Mkhalele said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cFootball is about exchanging knowledge. It is not about individual countries where you just keep your best coaches to yourself.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He said South African coaches working in Lesotho were not only imparting knowledge but also learning a great deal. He stressed that the fact that South Africa has more resources does not mean it cannot learn from Lesotho.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe all know that South Africa has more resources than Lesotho, and having coaches from South Africa here is a good thing. At the end of the day, I would also love to see Lesotho doing well in all international competitions \u2014 be it women or men football.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI would love to see them not just adding numbers, but truly competing. So, having exchange programmes like this course is the way to go. Being here is not only about me learning; I am also imparting knowledge.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Mkhalele added that it did not reflect well for South Africa to progress while Lesotho lags \u201cleft behind\u201d in football development. He urged LeFA to continue supporting development-driven initiatives, with a particular focus on improving infrastructure.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cTo improve the facilities is the most important thing, but developing coaches is key.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI have no doubt that Lesotho can be a strong nation in football. The only thing LeFA needs to do is to ensure they continue with initiatives like this coaching course. Implementation is key because, mostly in Africa, we have beautiful projects and beautiful rules \u2014 but the biggest challenge is whether we implement them.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>For More News And Analysis About <span style=\"color: #ff6600\">Lesotho<\/span> Follow <span style=\"color: #ff6600\">Africa-Press<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Africa-Press &#8211; Lesotho. SOUTH Africa\u2019s national soccer team assistant coach, Helman \u201cMidnight Express\u201d Mkhalele, has said he would like to see Lesotho grow into a stronger football nation. He said he believes structured exchange programmes between Lesotho and South Africa are the right path to achieving that. Mkhalele is among the coaches currently undertaking the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":64782,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,17],"tags":[245],"class_list":["post-64783","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-all-news","category-sport","tag-lesotho"],"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>Bafana assistant coach speaks on Lesotho football - Lesotho<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"SOUTH Africa\u2019s national soccer team assistant coach, Helman \u201cMidnight Express\u201d Mkhalele, has said he would like to see L ...\" \/>\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\/bafana-assistant-coach-speaks-on-lesotho-football\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Bafana assistant coach speaks on Lesotho football\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"SOUTH Africa\u2019s national soccer team assistant coach, Helman \u201cMidnight Express\u201d Mkhalele, has said he would like to see L ...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/all-news\/bafana-assistant-coach-speaks-on-lesotho-football\" \/>\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=\"2025-11-30T20:55:40+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2025-11-30T20:58:20+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/sites\/62\/2025\/11\/sm_1764523679.687214.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1536\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"896\" \/>\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=\"2 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\/bafana-assistant-coach-speaks-on-lesotho-football#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/all-news\/bafana-assistant-coach-speaks-on-lesotho-football\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"cfeditoren\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/#\/schema\/person\/068c7ab4e9634ae78ec5d54ec46598bb\"},\"headline\":\"Bafana assistant coach speaks on Lesotho football\",\"datePublished\":\"2025-11-30T20:55:40+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2025-11-30T20:58:20+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/all-news\/bafana-assistant-coach-speaks-on-lesotho-football\"},\"wordCount\":402,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/all-news\/bafana-assistant-coach-speaks-on-lesotho-football#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/sites\/62\/2025\/11\/sm_1764523679.687214.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"Lesotho\"],\"articleSection\":[\"all news\",\"sport\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/all-news\/bafana-assistant-coach-speaks-on-lesotho-football#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/all-news\/bafana-assistant-coach-speaks-on-lesotho-football\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/all-news\/bafana-assistant-coach-speaks-on-lesotho-football\",\"name\":\"Bafana assistant coach speaks on Lesotho football - 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