17 Nov 2025

Despite bowing out of the CAF Women’s League Champions at the group stage, Gaborone United Ladies head coach William Monene say they have outdone themselves given that they were debutants.

The Red Roses, who were in Group B, lost 4-0 to ASES Mimosas of Ivory Coast on Saturday. They finished at the bottom of the group without winning a single game, but managed to share spoils with JKT Queens of Tanzania, and lost 3-0 to TP Mazembe of Democratic Republic of Congo.

Monene said in an interview that compared to other games, against ASEC Mimosas they gave a better performance, although they were not clinical in front of goals. He said before ASEC Mimosas scored the first goal, the Red Roses had three clear chances to take the lead.

“We were clinical, like at COSAFA; that was the only difference between us and ASEC. We have learned some lessons,” he said.

Furthermore, he said their performance was not a train smash given that they had picked where they needed to improve as a team. The tournament intensity and tempo, he said, were very high compared to the domestic league and COSAFA.

Moving forward, he said there was a need for the team to work more on technical aspects of the game. Furthermore, he said his observation in general was that Botswana players lacked mental strength, adding that it was their weakest link.

Monene said the other thing was that Botswana does not currently allow women’s teams to sign foreign players like other nations.

“If you look at our team as a whole, you will agree with that if we could have been allowed to sign only four foreign players, we could be taking something else because we lacked depth,” he said.

Monene said lack of depth was the difference between the Red Roses and other teams at the tournament.

“If you play TP Mazembe, you will find there are South Africans, Ghanaians, and others, so this will limit our chances of going to the next stage or winning,” he sai. ENDS