Zimbabwe women’s coach praises Scorchers

Zimbabwe Women’s National Football Team new expatriate coach Stella Gotal has spoken highly of the Scorchers ahead of the two teams’ 2028 Los Angeles Olympic Qualifiers’ second round first leg.

The Malawi Women’s National Football Team will host the Mighty Warriors in the first leg at Bingu National Stadium in Lilongwe this Friday with the return leg slated for National Sports Stadium in Harare four days later.

Scorchers’ Faith Chimzimu (L) in action against Zimbabwe in a previous match.

| Courtesy of FAM

The Croatian was quoted by Zimbabwean newspaper heraldonline.cp.zw as having said that she expects a tough match against the Scorchers, who are fresh from their fairy-tale run at the 2026 Women’s Africa Cup of Nations (Wafcon) where they finished as runners-up to Cameroon’s Indomitable Lionesses.

Said Gotal: “We did our research and they [Scorchers] are a very strong side. We have to be tactically disciplined if we are to stop them.

“They are physical, direct and dangerous on set-pieces, so we must match their intensity but keep our own identity.

“As a team, we should understand our individual roles and how best each one of us should give maximum effort in that role to make it teamwork for us to bring results.”

However, she said they do not want to dwell on the Scorchers’ status.

“We are more innterested in increasing our work rate on the pitch and executing our philosophy and style in the best possible way,” she said.

The publication says Gotal is working on finding a solution for the Scorchers’ “fast and direct style characterised by counter-attacks and individual fire-power from world-class forwards Temwa and Tabitha Chawinga”.

The Mighty Warriors regrouped last week.

The tie will be the 34-year-old coach’s debut, who joined the Mighty Warriors a month ago on a two-year contract, tasked with guiding the team back to the Olympics.

Zimbabwe made their debut at the Olympics in 2016 in Brazil while the Scorchers are yet to qualify.

Meanwhile, the Scorchers regrouped on Friday in Lilongwe after coach Lovemore Fazili named a 28-member provisional squad for the back-to-back matches.

The squad includes Under-20 player Talandira Chinyamvula, while Patricia Nyirenda returns to the national team setup after last featuring for the Scorchers during the 2024 Cosafa Women’s Championship.

Fazili has largely retained the core of the squad that represented Malawi at the 2026 Wafcon.

Also earning a maiden Scorchers call-up is Asante Khamula of Washington Adventist University.

The winner of the two-legged tie will progress to the next round, where they will face the winner between Kenya and Seychelles in February next year.

The Scorchers are ranked 153rd on the Fifa Women’s World Rankings, 26 places below Zimbabwe.

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