Botswana succumbed to goals on either side of the half in a match played at the Obed Itani Stadium in Francistown. Now, the Mares have work to do in DRC next week if the Mares are to proceed to the second round. However, Malete is confident that his side will reverse the deficit when they travel to DRC for the return leg at the Stade des Martyrs in Kinshasa on Wednesday. "I think we did everything right except two things; first, we gave away two goals and secondly, we could have scored six or seven goals today. We created so many chances, a lot of one-on-one with the goalkeeper, but we could not take our chances," Malete told reporters after the match.
"(There were) two major downfalls: giving away goals and not converting our chances. But we are positive; we believe we can overturn the result. We created enough, and now we have to work on finishing and I thought we prepared well for this match. There were no surprises; we did a lot of things right; just two major things which were our downfall," he added. Malete is hard-pressed to do well after the team was eliminated in the group stages of the COSAFA Cup last year. The Mares will make their second consecutive appearance at the WAFCON in Morocco in December. The coach has indicated that there is a need for the team to fight in Kinshasa. "We are where we are and we will fight and try to reverse the scoreline. If we take our chances, we can even score more than two (in DRC). I think today's performance showed how well we did in terms of attack. We created chances more than any other game we have played," Malete said. If the Mares overcome DRC, they face South Africa's Banyana Banyana for a place at the 2026 tournament, which will also be hosted in Morocco.
