2 December 2022 – South African Under-17 women’s team coach, Delisilwe Mbatha, is very happy after her charges beat hosts Malawi in the opening match of the football competition at the Region 5 Games in Lilongwe, Malawi.
Bantwana beat Malawi 4-1 in the COSAFA Under-17 Girls’ Championship on Thursday, 2 December 2022 and Mbatha said she was satisfied with the performance.
Adrielle Mibe scored a brace in the first half, Mabahle Mdelwa got another before Khutso Mogano completed the rout.
“I am very happy and the girls are very happy,” she said. “The thing that makes me happiest the most is the fact that the girls can take instructions and act on them. Whenever we give them instructions, they communicate among themselves and motivate each other.”
Batwana face Namibia in their next match on Saturday, 3 December 2022 and Mbatha said the result in the opening match has given his players a lot of confidence.
“We are looking forward to the next game against Namibia,” she said.
“Our game against Malawi has given us confidence ahead of the next match. The girls need a bit of recovery and we will have a light training session today. We will talk to the girls because we saw a couple of mistakes against Malawi. They lost concentration at times and this is very, very dangerous, especially in the second half.”