Mighty Warriors Crash Out As Botswana Qualifies For The First Time

A resurgent final twenty minutes could not be enough to save the Mighty Warriors from missing the Africa Cup of Nations finals for the second time in a row after crushing out on away goal’s rule.

Emmaculate Msipa and Privilege Mupeti scored within four minutes of each other to stage a late come-back in the 66′ and 70 minutes respectively and level the aggregate scores at 3-3 against Botswana after suffering a 1-3 loss in the first leg played in Harare on the 18 of February.

But having conceded three goals at home, the Mighty Warriors needed another goal to secure their fifth Africa Cup of Nations appearance set for Morocco in July this year.

Turkey based skipper Emmaculate Msipa could have completed the incredible come-back in the last minutes of the game, but her effort agonizingly went off target to finish the match in Botswana’s favor.

It will be Botswana’s first Africa Cup of Nations appearance since the tournament’s inception in 1991.

The Mighty Warriors have appeared four times already at the finals. They also missed the 2018 edition in Ghana with their last appearance being in 2016 Cameroon.

This year’s tournament doubles as the African qualifiers to the Fifa 2023 women’s World cup as the final four teams at the tournament will automatically qualify to the World cup finals hosted by Australia and New Zealand while two more teams will advance to inter-confederation play offs.

The trophy has only been won by two nations so far which are Equatorial Guinea and Nigeria, with the latter being the most successful side with 11 titles and two for Equatorial Guinea.

Here are all the 12 teams qualified to this year’s AWCON2022 finals in Morocco

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Botswana, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Togo.

Cameroon, Morocco, Nigeria, Senegal, South Africa
Tunisia, Uganda, Zambia