06 Aug 2019

The Slovensky Futbalovy Zvaz (SFZ) secretary general, Jozef Kliment has urged the senior women national team to utilise their facilities to ready themselves for the upcoming Olympic qualifying games. He said this when welcoming the team to Poprad, Slovakia, on August 5 where the team is on two-week training camp.

The camp comes after Botswana Football Association (BFA) and their Slovakia counterparts signed a memorandum of cooperation. In that regard, the SFZ invited the senior women national team for a training camp in their effort to focus on the development of the partnership.

Kliment said should they win their qualifying games, it would be mission accomplished for the two federations given that they valued their cooperation.

“Enjoy your stay in Slovakia, work very hard because at the end of the day we both have to accomplish good results out of this training camp,” he said.

The team went for a light training session on Monday and the director of German-Botswana football project, Carolin Braun said the first  session was meant to be simple and fun, hence they did some techniques like passing the ball.

“It was not intensity training but moving forward we will be training very hard, and the importance of the cooperation session is that if you have a training camp and the team is excited in a new country, the most important thing is to make them comfortable and ensure they cooperate with each other,” she said.

The director said the most significant thing for the players was to work together in the field. She said that alone instilled responsibility amongst the players.

“It also helps them to take good judgement that during the game when they loose the ball, they could easily communicate and recover it from their opponents.”

She commended  BFA for finding it prudent to organise a training camp in Slovakia given that their facilities and other training equipment were of a high standard.

She said she was confident that at the end of the camp, the team would be a well-oiled machine ready to face their opponents in the qualifiers.

“We have a lot of good facilities like stadiums, and a pool that we can focus on to help us to fully apply ourselves,” she said.

Team captain, Bonang Otlhagile also commended BFA for taking the team to Slovakia, saying it would help them to prepare and gain experience.

She said they intended to use the exposure to enhance their team in all aspects.

“We have a tough encounter against Banyana Banyana of South Africa, and as players we take the fixture very seriously. At the end of our training camp we want to have a fresh mind and approach,” she said. ENDS