Botswana in fifth position play-offs

MOSAH MOKGANEDI
Correspondent | Monday August 22, 2011 00:00

Botswana, which was in pool B, only beat Rwanda 3-0 but lost 3-1 to defending champions Algeria and Tunisia.

The defending champions were also beaten 3-0 by Senegal.

Botswana is likely to face Nigeria who also saw red, losing all their pool A matches. Nigeria was with hosts Kenya, Egypt and Cameroon in a pool that was regarded as the group of death. Tunisia and Algeria have made it to the semi-finals. 

Botswana Volleyball Federation (BVF) development officer Mission Mereyotlhe, who expressed confidence in the team before the competition started, suspects that the problem started when the local team lost the first match.

Mereyotlhe had said that the only team that was a threat was Algeria. He said then that even though Tunisia was a formidable side dealing with them was not going to be a problem while he did not give Senegal a chance.  The team that is currently ranked sixth in Africa was hoping to use the championship to improve its ranking. They finished fifth of the six nations that took part in the last edition of the competition.

However, Mereyotlhe said all was not lost as he hoped that the training the team got from the competition would help them at the All Africa Games (AAG) starting in September 3 in Maputo, Mozambique.

'It is a good thing that they recovered in the last game,' he said. The team is expected to fly straight to Maputo at the end of the AFCON. The winner at AFCON will qualify for the London 2012 Olympic Games.