Last Friday, the national Under-23 side beat Egypt 2-1 but crashed out of the qualifiers for the London 2012 Olympic Games 3-2 on aggregate. The technical team at the Under-23 has always decried inadequate preparations since the beginning of the qualifiers for both the Olympic and All-Africa Games (AAG). The team scraped through the early stages of the two qualifiers with 1-0 wins and still looked far from convincing despite having the cream of the Premier League's young players. Prior to the first leg match against Egypt, the team played two friendly matches, against Lesotho and South Africa.
However, many key players were not part of the matches as the Premier League was on. The likes of Galabgwe Moyana of Mochudi Centre Chiefs, Tsotso Ngele of Santos, could not be released, as they are key players at their respective clubs. The Young Zebras drew against Lesotho before suffering a heavy 4-0 loss at the hands of the South Africans. Most players who did duty in the game against South Africa match were involved in the Coca-Cola quarter-final matches the previous day and were extremely fatigued. Even the coach did not have adequate time to plan as his team, BMC, was playing in the quarter-finals. Meanwhile, the grass was greener on the other side at the senior team who were then on the brink of making history by qualifying for the Africa Cup of Nations for the first time. Every soccer activity comes to a standstill whenever the national team is active so the players can prepare adequately and they finally qualified for AFCON.
