Botswana fire coach Tshosane

Football | Botswana

 

Recent defeat to South Africa in World Cup qualification has cost Botswana coach Stanley Tshosane his job.
He has been fired after a marathon five-year spell in charge of the Zebras that included the remarkable achievement of qualifying them for the 2012 African Cup of Nations finals.
But Tshosane’s success also proved his undoing as he raised expectations in Botswana and when the team did not qualify for either the 2013 Nations Cup or get past the group phase of the World Cup qualifiers, he was shown the door.

The last straw was the 4-1 loss to South Africa in Durban in last month’s World Cup qualifier.
The Botswana Football Association has decided “a new direction is needed,” according to its spokesman Phakamile Kraai.
It was Tshosane’s second stint as national coach. The former army officer went a long way to proving the ability of local coaches after Botswana had a series of foreigners in charge before him. He took Botswana to first place in a difficult 2012 qualifying group ahead of World Cup finalists Togo and Tunisia with the Zebras the first country to qualify from the 2012 preliminaries.
The next target for the Zebras will be trying to win a place at the 2015 Nations Cup in Morocco.