{"id":50285,"date":"2026-02-18T22:20:48","date_gmt":"2026-02-18T22:20:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/eduzim.co.zw\/news\/?p=50285"},"modified":"2026-02-18T22:20:48","modified_gmt":"2026-02-18T22:20:48","slug":"utm_sourcerssutm_mediumrssutm_campaignmighty-warriors-coach-makes-open-admission-ahead-of-cosafa-womens-championship-opener-against-eswatini","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/eduzim.co.zw\/news\/2026\/02\/18\/utm_sourcerssutm_mediumrssutm_campaignmighty-warriors-coach-makes-open-admission-ahead-of-cosafa-womens-championship-opener-against-eswatini\/","title":{"rendered":"Mighty Warriors coach makes open admission ahead of COSAFA Women&#8217;s Championship opener against Eswatini"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <script data-jetpack-boost=\"ignore\" async src=\"https:\/\/pagead2.googlesyndication.com\/pagead\/js\/adsbygoogle.js?client=ca-pub-1669381584671856\"\r\n     crossorigin=\"anonymous\"><\/script>\r\n<!-- Africa tv video display -->\r\n<ins class=\"adsbygoogle\"\r\n     style=\"display:block\"\r\n     data-ad-client=\"ca-pub-1669381584671856\"\r\n     data-ad-slot=\"3579572842\"\r\n     data-ad-format=\"auto\"\r\n     data-full-width-responsive=\"true\"><\/ins>\r\n<script data-jetpack-boost=\"ignore\">\r\n     (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});\r\n<\/script><br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div id=\"post-139929\">&#13;<br \/>\n\t<!-- .entry-header -->&#13;<br \/>\n    &#13;<br \/>\n\t<img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" width=\"473\" height=\"264\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/eduzim.co.zw\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/Mighty-Warriors-coach-makes-open-admission-ahead-of-COSAFA-Womens.webp.jpeg?resize=473%2C264&#038;ssl=1\" class=\"object-contain h-46 w-full rounded-lg  md:rounded-none md:rounded-lg wp-post-image\" alt=\"\" decoding=\"async\" fetchpriority=\"high\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.soccer24.co.zw\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/Sithethelewe-Sibanda--scaled.webp?w=2560&amp;ssl=1 2560w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.soccer24.co.zw\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/Sithethelewe-Sibanda--scaled.webp?resize=300%2C168&amp;ssl=1 300w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.soccer24.co.zw\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/Sithethelewe-Sibanda--scaled.webp?resize=1024%2C572&amp;ssl=1 1024w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.soccer24.co.zw\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/Sithethelewe-Sibanda--scaled.webp?resize=768%2C429&amp;ssl=1 768w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.soccer24.co.zw\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/Sithethelewe-Sibanda--scaled.webp?resize=1536%2C858&amp;ssl=1 1536w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.soccer24.co.zw\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/Sithethelewe-Sibanda--scaled.webp?resize=2048%2C1143&amp;ssl=1 2048w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.soccer24.co.zw\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/Sithethelewe-Sibanda--scaled.webp?resize=473%2C264&amp;ssl=1 473w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.soccer24.co.zw\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/Sithethelewe-Sibanda--scaled.webp?w=1280&amp;ssl=1 1280w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.soccer24.co.zw\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/Sithethelewe-Sibanda--scaled.webp?w=1920&amp;ssl=1 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 473px) 100vw, 473px\"\/>&#13;<\/p>\n<div class=\"entry-content custom-text-styles\">\n<p>Mighty Warriors coach Sithethelewe Sibanda has made an open admission ahead of the 2026 COSAFA Women\u2019s Championship opener against Eswatini on Thursday.<\/p>\n<p>The Zimbabwe women\u2019s national team will begin their Group B campaign at 12 noon at Seshego Stadium in Polokwane.<\/p>\n<p>With most players inactive due to the off-season break in the country, Sibanda believes their opponents hold an advantage ahead of Thursday\u2019s clash as their league has reached its peak.<\/p>\n<p>The coach said: \u201cEswatini\u2019s league is on-going and obviously they have better fitness. We have dominated them before but I don\u2019t think it will count here. We will need to focus on what we are doing at the moment.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cLooking at the physical levels, I think they\u2019re better than us.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Zimbabwe\u2019s next match is against Zambia on 22 February at 3 pm CAT at Old Peter Mokaba Stadium.<\/p>\n<p>The women\u2019s national team will return to Seshego Stadium for their final Group B match against Botswana on 24 February, with kick-off set for 12 noon.<\/p>\n<p><h3 class=\"jp-relatedposts-headline\"><em>Related Posts<\/em><\/h3>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><!-- .entry-content -->&#13;<br \/>\n&#13;<br \/>\n\t<!-- \n\n<footer class=\"entry-footer\">\n\t\t<span class=\"cat-links\">Posted in Local<\/span><span class=\"tags-links\">Tagged COSAFA Women&rsquo;s Championship, Eswatini, Mighty Warriors, Sithethelewe Sibanda<\/span>\t<\/footer>\n\n -->&#13;<br \/>\n    &#13;<br \/>\n&#13;<br \/>\n&#13;<br \/>\n&#13;<br \/>\n\t&#13;<br \/>\n\t&#13;\n<\/div>\n<p><script data-jetpack-boost=\"ignore\" async src=\"https:\/\/pagead2.googlesyndication.com\/pagead\/js\/adsbygoogle.js?client=ca-pub-1669381584671856\"\r\n     crossorigin=\"anonymous\"><\/script>\r\n<!-- Africa tv video display -->\r\n<ins class=\"adsbygoogle\"\r\n     style=\"display:block\"\r\n     data-ad-client=\"ca-pub-1669381584671856\"\r\n     data-ad-slot=\"3579572842\"\r\n     data-ad-format=\"auto\"\r\n     data-full-width-responsive=\"true\"><\/ins>\r\n<script data-jetpack-boost=\"ignore\">\r\n     (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});\r\n<\/script><br \/>\n#Mighty #Warriors #coach #open #admission #ahead #COSAFA #Womens #Championship #opener #Eswatini<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#13; &#13; &#13; &#13; Mighty Warriors coach Sithethelewe Sibanda has made an open admission ahead of the 2026 COSAFA Women\u2019s&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":50286,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[4801,1003,117,573,1675,6857,2202,954,2661,265,4289],"class_list":["post-50285","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-example-3","tag-admission","tag-ahead","tag-championship","tag-coach","tag-cosafa","tag-eswatini","tag-mighty","tag-open","tag-opener","tag-warriors","tag-womens"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eduzim.co.zw\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50285","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/eduzim.co.zw\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/eduzim.co.zw\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eduzim.co.zw\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eduzim.co.zw\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=50285"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/eduzim.co.zw\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50285\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":50287,"href":"https:\/\/eduzim.co.zw\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50285\/revisions\/50287"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eduzim.co.zw\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/50286"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eduzim.co.zw\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=50285"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eduzim.co.zw\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=50285"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eduzim.co.zw\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=50285"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}