{"id":4000,"date":"2024-06-04T08:59:46","date_gmt":"2024-06-04T08:59:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/soca263updates.com\/?p=4000"},"modified":"2024-06-04T09:04:20","modified_gmt":"2024-06-04T09:04:20","slug":"why-the-warriors-should-be-wary-of-lesotho","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/soca263updates.com\/?p=4000","title":{"rendered":"Why The Warriors Should Be Wary Of Lesotho"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Zimbabwe Warriors cannot afford to underestimate Lesotho  when they resume  their 2026 World Cup qualifiers campaign at Orlando Stadium on Friday. <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jairos Tapera\u2019s men have a tricky encounter against the Likuena before playing Bafana-Bafana in Bloemfontein on the 11th of June. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lesotho who are ranked 149th in the latest FIFA rankings against Zimbabwe’s 122nd position, will be no pushover despite Warriors’ good record against them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From the 11 games that the Warriors have played against Lesotho, Zimbabwe have won 5, draw 5 and lost only once. But practically this encounter presents itself as a real test for the Warriors<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As you know all sports teams go through cycles and Lesotho has been on a rise since the appointment of Leslie Notsi and Bob Mafoso as the head and assistant coaches respectively.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Their assignment commenced with the COSAFA Cup, where Lesotho reached the final for the first time in 23-years, settling for silver after a narrow 1-0 loss to Zambia\u2019s Chipolopolo.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They followed that with an impressive display against star studded Ivory Coast, who had to dig deep to clinch a 1-0 win at the newly opened Stade Laurent Pokou in San Pedro.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In November 2023, the rejuvenated Likuena side went on to draw against giants Nigeria in a 2026 World Cup qualifiers encounter before holding Benin to a goalless draw to earn two points from their first two World cup group C matches. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

With a lot of quality players in the South African Premier league, Lesotho national team continue to improve their standards.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the previous four games they drew nil all against South Africa, beat Ethiopia 2-1 before losing the 2nd leg.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On Saturday Lesotho came from behind to draw 1-1 against Namibia in Johannesburg during their preparatory match ahead of playing Zimbabwe. The Brave Warriors are sitting on top of group H of the 2026 World cup with six points from two games. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Meanwhile the new look Warriors – who still needs more time to gel as a team occupy fifth position in the group C of the 2026 World cup qualifiers, with two points from as much games.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In their previous four games the Warriors played two draws against Rwanda and Nigeria in their first two 2026 World Cup qualifiers in November last year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Warriors squad went on to beat Zambia in the four nations tournament before succumbing 3-1 to minnows Kenya in the final.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Zimbabwe Warriors cannot afford to underestimate Lesotho  when they resume  their 2026 World Cup qualifiers campaign at Orlando Stadium on Friday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4001,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"footnotes":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"http:\/\/soca263updates.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/20240604_040232_edit_128663108694950-scaled.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/soca263updates.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4000"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/soca263updates.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/soca263updates.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/soca263updates.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/soca263updates.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4000"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/soca263updates.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4000\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4003,"href":"http:\/\/soca263updates.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4000\/revisions\/4003"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/soca263updates.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4001"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/soca263updates.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4000"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/soca263updates.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4000"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/soca263updates.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4000"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}